


Forsaking All Others

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:14:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 69,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5297888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between ‘You can no longer be my servant’ and ‘Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?’ there is a journey of change and discovery. Or, an unnecessary attempt to marry TV and book canons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, don’t sue.  
> Beta’d by the wonderful mmmuses.

_“You can no longer be my servant.”_

He could see the effect his words had on her, though it was not the effect he had intended. A moment’s stare of – of what, surprise? hurt? – and then resignation. She dropped her gaze. Garrick tugged at his lead, a paltry bit of string. He hated to be on a leash, Ross knew. That Demelza had tied him spoke more for her intentions than the bag she carried. If she had simply gone for a walk, she would never have tied her dog. Garrick would have been free to leap and bound and chase rabbits.

She bowed her head and turned away from him, and he realised how badly she had misinterpreted his words. He muttered a curse and swung from his horse, wrapping the reins around his fist.

“Demelza!” Ross said, curter than he intended. She stopped still, but she did not turn back. Her hair was wild in the wind, loose and tousled. He felt a sudden urge to tangle his fingers in it, to cradle her head in his hands and kiss her. It was disquieting. Until two days ago, he had never consciously thought of her in such a way. She was Demelza; she was his maid. She was a companion too, and perhaps even growing to be a friend, but he had not thought to look at her with desire, no matter what the gossips believed. He had still regarded her somewhat as the half-starved brat that he’d rescued from a beating. 

Now…now he allowed himself to recognise her virtues. She was thin and tall, no curve to her – not like Elizabeth. When he’d bedded her, she’d been all sharp angles and lines, so little softness to her except in her eyes and her mouth and the way she’d responded to him. But the attraction was there. He would not deny it. And having once bedded her, having crossed that line, his own character insisted that there was only one true solution. 

“Demelza,” he said again, forcing gentleness into his voice. “Come here.”

Garrick barked and leapt, twisting around Demelza so that she had to unwind herself from his string before she could slowly, reluctantly, come down the cliff path towards him. She had been crying; her eyes were red and a little puffy from it. _That_ struck him where her decision to flee had not – apart from the previous night, when he’d lashed out at her so foully, he had never once seen her cry. And even then it had been an abortive attempt at tears, cut off by his fumbling apology and then by other things.

No, Ross had never known her to cry, let alone so much that it showed in her face like this. He was the cause of this, however unwittingly, and he found that he disliked the idea.

“Look at me,” he told her. When she did not obey him, he reached out and lifted her chin with a gentle finger. Wild and pale, Demelza met his gaze but said nothing. He wondered what she was thinking, even as he tried to decide what to say to her next. There was only one route available to him, but how to suggest it? This was not, _could_ not be, a romantic proposal. He did not love her. He could not confess love and beg her to be his wife, as he might have done to another woman, had circumstances been different. Nor could he, in this, act as he might otherwise act with Demelza and expect her obedience to his wishes. He could not order her to be his wife as he might order her to prepare supper or to weed a field. It would not be fair to her.

“Sir,” Demelza whispered, when the silence grew too long. Her voice was small and choked. She was beginning to tremble, a fine shivering in her body and limbs that she could not control. It was not the cold, for it was a fine June day, and her cloak was warm. It was the nearness of him, and the strength of the feelings that she knew she must conceal even now, for she knew – she _knew_ – she could never compare to Elizabeth in his eyes. Garrick tugged at his lead and the string cut into her fingers. 

“You’re exhausted,” he said, abruptly. “Come. I’ll take you home.” It took her a moment to realise he meant Nampara, a moment which he used to take Garrick’s string from her hand. “He can run,” he said, loosing the dog, to Garrick’s great delight. “Come,” Ross said again, when Demelza made no move. “Come home.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Demelza said, feeling a great wild agony rising in her throat. “Sir, I…”

“Not as my servant, Demelza,” he said. His voice was gentler than it usually was when he spoke to her. It only made her feel more wild, for she could not understand what he meant. A servant or a slut, either way it would not be a position that she could endure, not after knowing him, not after he had made love to her as he had last night. She had loved him for so long, all the while knowing it could never be hers, that _he_ could never be hers, and after this afternoon, after seeing the way he acted when she had happened upon he and Elizabeth…

“Come as my betrothed,” Ross said. It was part suggestion, part demand, and not at all a question, but the words had come, and he had said them now. He watched as her eyes widened and her lips parted, but she said nothing. He put his free hand at her waist and repeated himself. “Come as my betrothed,” he said, quieter now. This close to her, he fancied he could see thoughts dancing behind her eyes, although what those thoughts were, he could not venture to guess. 

“Be my wife,” he added, and something softened in her face. Some of the pain seemed to fade away as she turned this idea over in her mind. Then a tremulous smile began to play about her mouth, though she closed her eyes for a moment, as if to hide something of herself away.

“Yes, sir,” she agreed. Her smile did not grow large, but there was something contented about it that pleased Ross far more than the lingering signs of her tears. He used his hand on her waist to draw her closer to him, but he did not kiss her. Instead she rested her head against his shoulder, as if she needed the support, and Ross wondered again what she was thinking. 

“You must call me Ross,” he said, when Demelza took a deep breath and pulled away from him. ‘Sir’ would no longer do – certainly not after they were married. “I’ll see Odgers tomorrow,” he added. “The banns can be read this Sunday.”

Sunday! And today was Thursday, Demelza thought, somewhat stunned by the idea. The banns must be read three times before they could marry – if Ross meant to do it so quickly, then they might be married in a little more than two weeks. 

“Yes, sir,” she said again, and when Ross lifted an eyebrow, she corrected herself. “Yes… _Ross_ ,” she said. It felt awkward in her mouth, though it was a name she had said to herself many times. By the look on his face, she thought it was odd for him as well. 

“Well,” he said, “you’ll get used to it.” Demelza was not sure such a thing would happen quickly, but she was willing to let him think it might be easier. Three weeks. She might begin to learn it by then, if she tried. “Now come,” Ross said, unwinding the reins from his hand. “I’ll wager you’ve forgotten to eat, today. Prudie’s cooking is nothing to yours, but she’ll manage something more or less edible for you.”

“I’ve still time to cook supper, sir,” Demelza said, pride warring with weariness. Ross’s mouth twisted into a frown, but he said nothing, and the silence made Demelza uncertain. She faltered, and dropped her gaze once more, focusing on the buttons of his waistcoat. Then Ross sighed, and the hand not holding the reins came up to cup her face. Demelza wanted to hold her breath. She was still shaking, her limbs still trembling, and her teeth would be chattering were she not clenching her jaw tightly to stop it.

“Do as you’re told,” he said. It wasn’t harshly said, more a gentle teasing, but there was iron beneath his voice and Demelza recognised it. “Now get on this horse,” he went on, “or must I throw you across the saddle?”

The tease – for it was a tease, she knew full well he would not do such a thing – made her nerves disappear, or so it felt to Demelza. Ross mounted the horse and then held a hand down for her. She put her foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself up, careless of her skirts as Ross helped her settle in front of him.

It was hardly the first time they had ridden like this, but Ross was aware of a new feeling to it now. On previous occasions, she had sat straight and upright, allowing a modicum of space between his front and her back. Previously he had put his arms either side of her, to hold the reins, but had been careful that he should not, so far as possible, let his arms stray anywhere that might be improper or make her uncomfortable. 

Not so now. Now he held the reins in one hand, for Darkie knew her way almost without direction, and he put his free arm around Demelza with his hand to her stomach, holding her close against him. He could feel the rise and fall of her breathing. Her hair blew against his face. It smelled faintly of salt, as if she had been bathing in Nampara Cove. Perhaps she had; certainly she seemed to have spent most of her day roaming free, nowhere to be found when he wanted her and present at the most awkward of moments.

Her waist was so thin. She could not be called slender – she was skinny, no more or less. He’d lit an extra candle, last night, to see her better, consumed with a _need_ to see her better. Her waist was thin, and her breasts were small, girlish even. Her bones jutted out, from hips and elbows and shoulders. Not the type of woman he’d ever thought much about, in truth, but now he thought about Demelza’s body. He remembered the feel of her breasts cupped in his hands, and the way her legs had wrapped around him. Riding so close to her, the thought of having her again was almost overwhelming. He bowed his head and sought skin beneath her hair; his lips met her neck, and Demelza made a soft noise and pressed back against him as if she shared in his desire.

He thought, almost idly, of what he would do, had he time and privacy – if they were in a bedroom rather than atop a horse in the open air. He would kiss her neck, as he did now, and slide his hand from her stomach to her breast. Tonight, perhaps. Though perhaps not, perhaps he should at least try to act as a gentleman should. Not as many gentlemen did, of course, but now that the proposal had been made and agreed, perhaps he should show restraint until they were wed, and send her back to her own bed. Yet when she leaned against him and made such appealing noises, it was a hard choice to make. 

He felt newly reawakened to sexual desire, newly conscious of his own skin and of hers, of the shape of her against him. He’d known little enough of lust since returning to find Elizabeth engaged to Francis, but now, after only one night together with Demelza, his blood ran hot and he felt not unlike a young man newly emerging into adult appetites. He would not allow it to rule him, but it was not an easy ride back to Nampara, with Demelza held close and so warm in front of him, and when at last they reached the stable yard, he was almost grateful that she was quick to dismount.

“I’ll send Jud out for the horse,” Demelza muttered, turning away to cross the yard to the kitchen door. She could see to Darkie herself, but she was determined to manage a supper for him, despite what he had said. She would not subject him to Prudie’s cooking, not when she had been so neglectful of her other duties today.

“Demelza, wait.” Ross dismounted, and put his hand on her waist again, familiarly, as if it was something he had done many times before. He looked serious, and her heart seemed to skip a beat as she wondered whether he had changed his mind, whether after all he did not intend to marry her. 

“Does your new intended not even merit a kiss on parting?” he asked her, and belatedly Demelza saw the twinkle in his eye that showed he was teasing her. Well, she thought,  
perhaps I can tease back; perhaps that’s allowed, now.

“P’raps not,” she said. “P’raps I’d rather go an’ see to supper.” Ross looked amused, and Demelza decided to dare lifting a hand to rest against his chest, fingering the edge of his coat. He didn’t object. Her heart seemed to be beating too fast, her stomach quivering with anticipation. “P’raps you can persuade me,” she suggested. Ross tugged her closer to him and kissed her. 

It was as wild as their first kiss, his mouth working against hers, demanding and possessive. It made her shiver in delight. It made her want to press against him and match him, to lay her claim over him as surely as he laid his over her. Too soon, too soon for such ideas, before the banns had even been read, and anyway, he would never be hers entirely, not the way she was his – body and soul, she was his. But he would marry her; he would be her husband. She _was_ claiming him, a little.

The kiss ended, though Ross still held her. His eyes were dark, and his lips were wet. She wanted to kiss him again, but she held herself back. He stared at her, unblinking, and she thought: I did this to him; I do this to him.

“Have I persuaded you?” he asked her roughly. 

Demelza swallowed, and nodded. “Aye, sir,” she said. “I think you have.”

“ _Ross_ ,” he said, shaking his head a little. Demelza ducked her head and looked up at him through her eyelashes.

“Yes, Ross,” she said. Behind him, the horse was restless, and she let her hand slide from Ross’s chest. “I’ll fetch Jud,” she said again. “An’ I’ll find something for supper.” Ross looked as though he wanted to object, but then he shook his head and stepped back from her. She missed his hand at once; her waist felt cold without the warmth of his touch. 

“If you must,” he said. “Don’t work yourself too hard, Demelza.” Then that twinkle came back into his eyes, and Demelza held her breath while she waited. “I might have other work for you, later,” he teased her, and she flushed at the insinuation, though she could not help but smile at the idea. Her heart sang; her body was warm and so very aware of him. If it was a sin, to lie with this man before marriage, she did not care. She would go to him tonight, if he wanted her, and she would go gladly.

But now she left him, hurrying away to the kitchen, conscious of his gaze following her as she went. She tried not to react, to hide her smiles, because she didn’t yet want Jud and Prudie to know about her happiness. She would have to think of a way to manage them, for they would not like it. No, they’d not like the idea of taking orders from a kitchen maid. Airs and graces, they’d say. They would have to know soon enough, but for now – for today, at least – she would keep her happiness tucked inside and not subject it to their bad moods.

Jud was snoring loudly in a corner of the kitchen. There was a strong stench of ale – not Ross’s good brandy, for once. He’d been in the kiddleys, Demelza suspected, and was in no fit state to unsaddle Ross’s horse. The kitchen fire was out; Prudie was nowhere to be seen. Judas God, Demelza thought, she could wish Prudie a hundred miles away sometimes, for all the good she did here. The fire could be rebuilt, but not hot enough to cook on before supper was due. But it was a warm day and there was cold meat from the day before, half a chicken and cold potatoes that she could dress, and plenty of bread, though it was not fresh, for she’d not baked today and would not be able to now.

First, she went back to the stable yard. Ross had tied Darkie to the fence, but she needed unsaddling and tending. That done, there were the cows to tend, eggs to collect, all chores that Demelza should have done this morning but had abandoned, lazy in her joy. Prudie or Jud had fed and watered all the stock, but nothing more. Demelza had to hurry now, to have it all done and still have time to prepare a meal. And always as she worked, she thought: I am Ross’s now, and in three weeks I shall be his wife; then father can never take me away from him.

“Judas!” she said aloud, startling the chickens as she gathered the day’s eggs in her apron. Her father. If he came here – no, but he mustn’t, he’d like as not end up trying to fight Ross again, Methody or not. If only she could _write_ , but she was scarce able to string letters together to read them, let alone write a letter to her father. Not that he could read much himself. A message would do, but Jud wouldn’t go on her word alone, not all the way to Illugan. She’d have to ask Ross to send him, and that meant telling him that her father had visited yesterday. It meant telling him why she’d put on the blue frock, and she’d no wish to rouse his anger again, not when things seemed to be going well.

But there was no choice, and so she must make the best of it. She took the last egg from the henhouse and went back to the kitchen. Jud was still snoring, but Prudie was back, raking out the cold ashes from the grate and trying to look as if she’d been working hard all the while.

“Where’ve you bin, then?” she demanded of Demelza. “T’idn’t right, you doing them hens so late. And look ee, there’s no fresh bread, and no supper to speak of. Where’ve you bin, girl?”

“I wasn’t well,” Demelza said. “Stomach-y. Been down to the cove to see if the smell’d help it.”

Prudie eyed her suspiciously. “Salt and dead fishes never did no good what I know of,” she sniffed. “Hard work, that’s what helps when a body’s cramping. Scrubbin’ the floors, me mam used to say. That’d cure it.”

“It weren’t cramps,” Demelza said, but would not be drawn further. “Here, Prudie, heat some water when the fire’s going, an’ I’ll boil up some of these eggs to go with the cold chicken. ‘Tis warm enough for a cold meal tonight.” Cold chicken and eggs, she thought, and dressed potatoes, and there was a little ham left, and part of a tongue. 

Prudie sniffed again. “It’ll be colder later, mark ee,” she said, but she continued to work at the fire. 

Jud awoke when he realised supper was being prepared, and Prudie chivvied him into labour, sending him for more firewood. The lack of it, Demelza realised, had been an excuse for Prudie to let the fire go out. But she had no cause to complain of their idleness today, when she had been so idle herself, so she held her tongue and did not scold. 

She felt supper was a poor showing, when it was assembled and ready to serve. She’d meant to put the cooked chicken into a pie, but it would be served cold now instead. She fretted about the lack of warm food, for the air _was_ just beginning to have a chill in it, as Prudie had predicted. A wind was coming in from the sea. It was still all her own cooking, well-seasoned and dressed, but she didn’t want to disappoint Ross. She fidgeted at the tray, rearranging dishes, until she could delay no longer. Then she took the tray into the parlour and set it on the table, avoiding Ross’s eye.

“Sit,” he urged her, watching as she unloaded her tray and took a plate from the dresser for the meal. Only one plate, he noted, as if she was unsure of her welcome. Yet they’d eaten more than a few meals together of late, companionable meals where he’d welcomed her honest opinion. Some of the meals, when he’d not been too tired, had drifted into lessons. Demelza was learning her letters, and he thought his teaching was proving welcome, even if he had little aptitude for the task. 

Ross reached for another plate, and handed it to her. “Sit,” he said again, and Demelza offered him a shy, sweet smile. It was oddly charming to see how nervous she was, but he hid his smiles and filled his plate – then he filled hers, when she made no move to do so. He didn’t urge her to eat, but once he began, she followed suit. She picked at her food at first, and then hunger overrode her semblance of gentle manners and she ate speedily.

“Where were you going?” he asked after a while. She’d been heading towards Sawle, but there were few enough other routes for her to take from Nampara, and he was curious about where she’d been going. She knew people in Sawle, of course, and at Mellin Cottages, but he didn’t think she was friendly enough with anyone that they would take her in. 

“…Illugan,” Demelza answered, her mouth twisting into a frown. She glanced up at him, and then her gaze skittered away. Ross shook his head and leaned back in his chair, incredulous.

“Back to your father?” he demanded. “Back to a man who beats you, when you still bear his scars on your back?” He could not fathom it. Not when she’d said plain enough to him, before now, that she did not want to go back to her father. He knew enough of her life before coming here to know that she was infinitely better off at Nampara, even as a servant. She was clothed, fed, sheltered, treated with kindness and her work respected. All things that he knew she had lacked before.

Demelza shrugged her shoulders and looked down at the table top. There was a look about her that made her seem older than her years, wearied in a way that did not suit her. 

“He’s gone Methodist,” she said. “No more drink, no more beatin’. He be married again, and they be wantin’ me home.”

Ross looked at her for a moment more, and then he rose to find a glass and a bottle. He had no interest in getting drunk, but he wanted the time and the space to think, with his back to her to hide his face. 

“I see,” he said, busying himself with pouring a measure of brandy. “And when did he tell you of these miracles in his life?” He could guess, but he wanted her to say it. Demelza was silent as he lifted the glass to his mouth; he didn’t sip, but waited for her response.

“…Yesterday, sir,” Demelza admitted at last. With his back to her, she’d no idea what he was thinking. “He come over – _came_ over, I mean – on account of…of things people have been saying. An’ I couldn’t see a way clear of it, so I thought I’d have to go, an’ then – then I put on the dress, thinkin’ I’d be gone soon enough, so there’d be no harm in it, and…and I didn’t think you’d be back so soon. I didn’t think there’d be harm in it, just once. To say goodbye.” Still he stood with her back to her, and Demelza thought, he won’t want me now; he’ll think I did it to trick him. “I know it was wrong,” she said quietly. “I never should’ve…I was just tryin’ to say goodbye.”

“Well,” Ross said. He came back to the table, leaving the bottle in the cupboard. “And then I threatened to send you back to him.” His anger had fled as quickly as it had come, when he’d seen the effect his words had had on her. But to find her wearing his mother’s dress…it had been a shock, and not a pleasant one, though he could admit that she had looked alluring in it. That had been half the problem – to see his scrawny servant girl dressed up in a fine silk gown, suddenly looking so desirable, when he knew full well what people thought of them. It was as if she’d done it deliberately, to provoke him. He was glad to find she’d had another reason to wear the dress.

“Yes, sir,” Demelza murmured. She was frowning now, turning over some thought in her mind. Ross didn’t ask what she was thinking; if she wanted to tell him, she would.

“I’ll send Jud over to Illugan,” he said. Jud wouldn’t be happy about it, but Ross cared little for Jud’s happiness. It would give him an excuse to be idle – no doubt he would take the whole day to walk a matter of a dozen miles or so . But Demelza was clearly unhappy about the idea of being dragged away from Nampara by a duty to her father, so it was worth losing Jud’s grudging labour for a day, to keep Carne away. Demelza’s duty would tie her here, now, though no longer a paid duty as a servant. She would be his wife.

His _wife_. His, to have and hold, his to care for and shelter. Not that he loved her, not the deep, abiding love that he still felt for Elizabeth, try though he might to shake himself free of it. But he was fond of Demelza. He felt an affection for her that seemed as good a basis for a marriage as any other reason. He desired her, now he’d been awakened to it and had shed his sense of confusion and the instinct to self-reproach that had plagued him earlier in the day. That she was attached to him, he had known for some time, but not the depth of the attachment. She cared enough to agree to the marriage, at any rate. Marriages had begun in worse circumstances.

“He won’t be happy,” Demelza observed, though whether she spoke of her father or Jud, Ross couldn’t say. Probably she meant both. He shrugged his shoulders and drank some more of his brandy. They were quiet for some time then, eating their supper. Ross could not guess at Demelza’s thoughts, but found himself pleased with the occasional soft glances she gave him.

“I’d thought to go over to Mellin Cottages tomorrow,” Demelza said after a while. “To see Jinny.” She was friendly with Jinny; they were of a similar age, and Jinny had come to her with woes before. With Jim Carter sentenced to two years, and a newborn to care for, Demelza knew that Jinny would be struggling, even with the help of her mother-in-law Mrs Zacky Martin. She thought – she hoped – that a kind face and perhaps something to add to the table might help a little.

Ross’s expression blackened. “I’m sure she’ll welcome you,” he said. “It will be some time before I can look her in the eye, after the mess I made of things.”

“Oh, no,” Demelza said, impulsively reaching across the table to cover his hand with hers. “You did more than most folk would ever think of,” she reminded him. “They know that. Jinny and Mrs Zacky, and all – they’re that glad of what you did, sir.”

Ross turned his hand to clasp hers, palm to palm, fingers linked. It startled Demelza, but only for a moment. For a long time Ross had hesitated to touch her, always careful not to do anything improper, and this casual touch made Demelza feel light-hearted and happy. She wanted to smile, but did not want to seem as though she was making light of his feelings. He had always done his best for Jim Carter, and more than anyone of their station had any right to expect from a man of his class. He would never see it; she knew that much of him, by now.

“If you are trying to see the best in me, I should warn you that it’s a doomed job,” Ross said. He was trying to smile, but his eyes were bleak. “I’ll never forgive myself for failing him.”

“He’s not dead,” she retorted. “Things could be a lot worse. At least there’s a chance he’ll come home to her. You gave ‘em that chance, sir.”

“ _Ross_ ,” he said, a flicker of amusement beginning to banish the dark mood that had threatened to envelop him. “You’ll have to learn it eventually,” he said, trying to tease her again. “It’s hardly a difficult name.” 

“Ross,” Demelza repeated, though her obedience was marred by the glimmer of merriment in her eyes. Ross lifted their joined hands and kissed the base of her thumb, and her wrist, and her knuckles. She watched him, and he watched her, and he unclasped his hand from hers so he could kiss her palm. “Ross,” she said again, softly. 

The moment passed. She took her hand back, and Ross gulped down the last of his brandy.

“I thought I might take Jinny some eggs and milk,” Demelza said, finishing off her last morsel of supper. “We’ve plenty, and it would be a help to her.”

“It’s a kind thought.” Ross leaned back in his chair, frowning faintly. “I’ve a mind to send her some money, too.”

“No,” Demelza said at once. Milk and eggs was one thing. Even a baking of bread or a couple of meat pies would be acceptable to Jinny Carter, as near widowed as made no difference. But not coin. Not from Ross, nor from anyone else. “No, she’d see that as charity. She wouldn’t take it – not if you begged her.” 

“It wouldn’t be _charity_ ,” Ross said, but he seemed to accept her judgement, for he said no more about it. “Well, take her what eggs and milk you think is right,” he told her. “And if you see Mrs Zacky, tell her to send over if there’s anything we can do to help.” Demelza nodded, and wondered how he could be so full of bitter guilt over his actions or inactions when he did more to help his tenants and friends among the poorer classes than any other gentleman she’d ever heard of, not in all her seventeen years.

They had both finished eating now, so Demelza rose and began to gather the dishes back onto the tray. 

“Shall I light the candles in here?” she asked him. She seemed to become clumsy under his gaze, sending a knife skittering across the table, so Ross looked away, towards the window. It was beginning to grow dark – the evenings were still lengthening, but not enough to do without a light if he had to work, which he must tonight, having done none of his mine-work yesterday or today. 

“Yes – and join me, if you like,” he said, rising to retrieve his papers. “Work on your letters.” It was not, perhaps, the most sensible of suggestions. He must concentrate on the accounting, and Demelza sitting across from him, learning from the old hornbook he’d dug out for her from his boyhood, might prove distracting. But he found he wanted her close by, this evening. He could not have said why, only that he wanted it. 

Demelza’s smile was bright and happy. “Yes, sir,” she said, and Ross did not correct her, not this time. His mind was already turning away from Demelza towards the state of Wheal Leisure. He watched as she left the room, thinking for a brief moment about the long legs beneath her skirt, and then he found the papers he needed and spread them out across the table, leaving a little room for when Demelza came back.

She did not return at once. She had work to do that she felt must take precedence over learning her letters, even if it meant sacrificing a pleasant evening in Ross’s company. The dishes needed to be washed, the kitchen floor swept, the fire tended. Prudie helped a little, and Jud not at all. He had left the kitchen while Demelza had been eating with Ross, and Demelza hoped he’d gone to bed, not out to cause more trouble. It was a pleasant surprise to find that he’d gone out to tend to the stock, and she suspected Prudie’s hand in that. Even drunk, Jud could be trusted to make sure the animals were fed and watered – just about – and so at last there were no more chores.

Demelza hurried to wash her face and comb her hair before she went back to the parlour. She might not have bothered normally, though her habits had become much better here, where Ross expected a higher standard of cleanliness and dress from his servants. But she was conscious of a wish to please him, when he looked at her. It was not a new desire, but for so many months she had told herself that it was useless, that he would never look at her in that way, and so any extra effort on her part would have been unnecessary.

Now…well, things were different now, and Demelza did not begrudge five minutes spent washing her face and hands and forcing a comb through her hair. Remembering the feel of his lips on her neck, she tied her hair back with a strip of cloth. Her heart was beating too fast as she came quietly back down the stairs and slipped into the parlour. 

Ross glanced up with a brief smile when she came in, but he offered no greeting, preoccupied with whatever he was working on. Demelza fetched the hornbook from its place in the cupboard, and the inkpot and scraps of paper that Ross had given her to practice with, and then took her seat across the table from him. The letters of the alphabet she knew now, and many of the ways they could be combined. The prayer inscribed below the alphabet was familiar from childhood, recognisable enough to aid learning, and she began to copy the words, frowning when she didn’t manage a particular letter. Some of them, she thought, really had no business having such fiddly loops and curls.

Ross kept working at first, Demelza a comfortable presence opposite him. She did not, at first, provide the distraction he had half-suspected she might. She worked quietly. Every now and then he glanced up at her, his mouth twitching into a smile when he found her frowning in concentration. Sometimes her lower lip was caught between her teeth; at other times she seemed brighter, as if pleased with her progress. She was a fast learner, and there was satisfaction to be found in seeing her grasp the fundamentals of reading and writing. If she continued to work as she had so far, she would be reading and writing as well as many better-born men and women before long. 

She had tied her hair up. The candlelight played across her neck, and over the line of her collarbone where it showed above her dress. Ross thought about kissing her neck, about leaving a mark on her throat with his teeth. He shifted slightly in his chair, and tried to concentrate on the mine’s accounts. Demelza’s lip was between her teeth again, a crease between her eyebrows as she frowned down at her lettering. He fixed his eyes upon his own papers, and did not look up, not even when she muttered something under her breath. 

It would wait for night; he was not some intemperate boy, ruled by his passions. 

Besides, he had not yet heard Jud and Prudie going to bed, and he would do nothing until he knew they were safely out of the way. So he immersed himself in the paperwork that Henshawe had sent over to him, ahead of the next month’s negotiation with Leisure’s tributers, and for a while his mind was full of ore and lodes, all the things upon which his fortunes depended. 

Demelza, head bowed over her work, knew nothing of Ross’s internal struggles. She was no longer copying from the hornbook, but from a piece of paper Ross had given her. On it he had written her name, in clear, printed letters, as well as his name, and Prudie and Jud too. She copied the names onto a fresh piece of paper, over and over again until the letters began to look more like those that Ross had written. 

Once, just to see what it would look like, she wrote ‘Demelza Poldark’. It seemed strange to see it so starkly on the paper, printed in her careful hand that had yet to fully master an ink pen. Then, afraid that Ross should see and laugh at her, she deliberately blotted the paper with a succession of inkblots, and scuffed her fingers over it for good measure. It destroyed all sign of what she had done, and a good many other words were obscured wholly or in part as well. She felt it was a worthwhile sacrifice, to keep her foolishness hidden from Ross. After all, she thought, the banns would not be read until Sunday, and today only Thursday night. Many things could happen. He might yet decide it had been a hasty decision, that it was a nice idea to marry her but that, on reflection, it simply would not do for a gentleman to marry his kitchen maid.

Especially a kitchen maid who he’d brought home one market day, covered in dirt and lice and bruises, one who couldn’t claim to be able to read or write – who couldn’t curtsey, even. She was a poor choice for him, and she was conscious of it.

At last they heard the familiar sounds of Jud and Prudie making their way up the stairs to bed.

“I should check the stove,” said Demelza, capping her inkwell and laying down her pen. With Prudie having a lazy turn of mind today, Demelza didn’t trust her to have banked the fire properly. She rose and made to leave, but Ross stretched out an arm and caught her by the elbow. “Sir?” she asked, and then she couldn’t help a startled laugh as he pulled her close, tumbling her down into his lap.

“Let it be,” he said. “I doubt we’ll burn to the ground.” With Jud and Prudie safely above, Wheal Leisure’s accounts held little interest for him compared to the skinny young woman who now put her arms around his neck and looked at him with dark eyes. He had an arm around her waist; his other hand he rested on her knee. She looked, for a moment, wholly unlike the Demelza who had lived and worked alongside him for these past months and years. Then a familiar smile curved her mouth, and he pulled her even closer and kissed her.

She was pliant at first, almost unresponsive, as if some instinct was at war with the warm desire that he knew to be in her. But her lips parted at his coaxing, and then she matched him, passion meeting passion, like a spark catching at wood and turning into a fire. 

He had kissed women before, of course – none that had mattered besides Elizabeth – but he had never been prone to comparing women, as some of his comrades-in-arms had in the war. Ross did not do so now, caught up in the pleasure of kissing Demelza, of tasting her, but there was still a distinct awareness that there was some zeal to the embrace that he had not felt with others. There was, he assumed, some new savour to the experience, knowing that in a matter of twenty-four or twenty-five days this woman would be his wife. 

Demelza made a sound, low and breathy. Ross kissed her deeply, fiercely, as if he could take possession of her. She broke away for air, tilting her head back, and the expanse of bare throat before him was too much temptation to resist. Ross dragged his mouth across it, his stubble rasping against her skin. He found the pulse of her neck and kissed it. He scraped his teeth across her throat and worked a mark into the place where neck flowed into shoulder.

“Ross,” Demelza whispered, “it’ll show.”

“Good,” Ross said, and he left her neck to return to her mouth, kissing her as deeply as he could, his tongue stroking across her tongue, until his mouth was swollen from kissing her. He lifted his hand from her knee, cupped her face and rubbed his thumb across her lower lip. Demelza, with a look that made her once again a stranger, kissed his thumb and then sucked the tip of it into her mouth, her tongue swirling in a way that made Ross’s mouth turn dry. He was hard, his cock pressing into her thigh through layers of clothing, and Demelza had somehow turned into a siren before his very eyes. He briefly entertained the idea of laying her across the table and having her here and now, to slake his fierce desire, but only briefly. She deserved better than to be taken like some harlot on his dining room table.

“Come to bed,” he commanded. 

“I must feed Garrick first,” Demelza said, and she slipped from his lap before he could catch hold of her. “I won’t be long,” she added, when it seemed he might object. 

“Be sure you’re not,” he said. There was a roughness in his voice. She had put that there, Demelza thought with a thrill of pleasure. _She_ had made him look so wild and full of need. 

She left the parlour and heard him moving as she went, but she did not look back. She went to the kitchen, checked the stove, and then filled Garrick’s bowl with water and found the bone she’d been saving for him. Garrick slept in the kitchen these days, free from crawlers and thus allowed this far inside the house. He sat in front of the stove, waiting for his supper, and he pressed his wet nose into her hand before he settled down to enjoy the bone.

Ross had gone upstairs already; she had heard his foot on the creaky step near the top. Demelza stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, a hand at her breast, willing her heartbeat to slow. She took a breath and released it. He was waiting for her. He was waiting. It would not be like last night, she supposed. Last night she had been uncertain, the act new to her. Now – now she was his betrothed, and she knew a little more of what to expect. She knew what pleasure his touch would bring her. She knew the sounds he made, and the look on his face when she touched him.

She hurried up the stairs and to Ross’s bedroom. He was waiting for her, standing by the window in just his drawers. Heat kindled in Demelza, in her veins and loins and heart. Ross held out a hand for her, wordlessly commanding her closer, and she went to him and eagerly accepted the kiss he bestowed. Then, when he began to fumble at the fastenings of her dress, she laughed and batted his hands away.

“’Tis simpler if I do it,” she said, and Ross conceded the truth of it and let her take over. Demelza took off her shoes and stockings first, bending down and setting them neatly to one side. Then she undid her dress, her fingers working nimbly, flicking the hooks from their fastenings with practiced ease. Ross slid his hands beneath the bodice of her dress as soon as he could, and silently swore a curse when he still did not find flesh. Demelza shook off the dress, letting it pool around her feet, and she stood before him then in just her shift. 

Her hair was still caught up in its cloth. The mark he had left upon her neck was vivid against her pale skin. Here she is, he thought, and I’ve claimed her now. There was no going back. 

He let his fingers drift down her sides, over her waist. Demelza was watching him, and when he lifted up her shift and put his hands beneath it, one on each hip, her breath hitched. Then she pressed against him, arms around his neck, and lifted her face to kiss him. She had not yet instigated a kiss, and her initiative now pleased him on some deep, instinctual level. She was learning to kiss as fast as she learned everything else, it seemed, and for a few moments Ross was content to let her guide the kiss, to let her experiment with him. Then he used his grasp of her hips to tug her even closer, so his cock was pressed against her, her slight movements against him a teasing kind of friction.

“Oh –,” She was breathless and surprised for a moment, and then she took on that new, unfamiliar look again. It was a look, Ross began to comprehend, that heralded the new Demelza that he had discovered last night, the siren who made him ache for her. She rubbed up against him, and this time Ross swore aloud.

“Did I ought not –,” she began, but Ross cut her off with a kiss. Then he lifted her clear off her feet and spun around, taking her to the bed. Demelza smothered a shriek, and then when he pushed her backwards onto the mattress, she began to giggle.

“Am I so amusing?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow at her. He stood over her, and she watched as his gaze travelled down her body. Her shift had slipped above her waist when he’d tossed her down; she was bare below that. The way he looked at her made her feel…she didn’t have words for how it made her feel, only she knew that she liked it. Her giggles faded away.

“No,” she said softly, and she sat up and drew her shift over her head. She let it fall to the ground beside the bed, and looked up at him, tucking away the last of her nerves. “Are you just goin’ to look?” she teased him. Ross looked hungry, somehow. It perhaps ought to have scared her, but instead she only felt excited. He crawled onto the bed, straddling her, and he kissed her again while his hands stroked across her skin. Her arms, her stomach, her breasts. He pressed her down onto the bed, kissing her all the while. Demelza arched up into him. She felt as if every inch of her skin was over-sensitive. Every touch of his hands or his mouth made her burn. 

“Ross,” she whispered, and she wriggled a hand between them and tried to unfasten his drawers. Ross was unhelpful – he chuckled, a warm huff of air against her neck, and then he lowered his head and took a nipple into his mouth. 

The cry she made at that was delightful. Ross sucked at the small bud of flesh, and then grazed his teeth across it. Demelza writhed beneath him, a hand lifted to his head as if to hold him to her. But Ross had no intention of moving. Her breasts, though small, were beautiful, and he enjoyed the noises she made far too much to leave them now. He teased the nipple into fullness, and then turned to the other one, giving that the same attentions. 

A fancy took him then, and he smiled into the curve of her breast, where she could not see it – but she was not looking, a quick glance showed him. Her head was flung back, her throat exposed, her mouth open wordlessly. One of her hands was still at his head, her fingers combing through his hair. The other hand clutched the bedclothes. If she had been a paid harlot, he’d suspect her of assuming such a demeanour. But she was not; she was his innocent Demelza, newly discovering the pleasures of her body. 

He kissed his way down her stomach. Her skin tasted of salt; she _had_ been sea bathing, probably in nothing but her shift. The thought of it filled his head and his cock, but he would have her this way first, he thought. She would have her pleasure first. So he worked downwards, kissing and licking and nipping with his teeth, until he reached the sparse thatch of hair that covered her quim. He nudged her legs wider apart.

”What –,” she began, but then Ross parted the outer lips and stroked his tongue across the slick inner folds. Demelza made a whining, keening sound then, and it spurred Ross on. He licked again, and then found the little nub of flesh above her entrance and he sucked at it. Demelza moaned, a breathless sound, and she lifted her hips up against him. Ross smiled into her, and he worked his tongue against her, licking and sucking and drawing the most delightful moans and quivers from her, until he could feel her shaking beneath him. Then he suckled at her nub again, hard and relentless, until she stiffened in a spasm, a high-pitched cry torn from her throat as she peaked.

Ross licked his lips. The taste of her was not unpleasant; musky, and distinctive. Demelza was boneless on the bed as he crawled back up to lie beside her, but when he reached to kiss her, she responded eagerly.

“Ross,” she whispered, when he gave her space to breathe. “I never – I never heard of –,” She cut herself off. Her cheeks were burning, and she could not say it, especially not with that look on his face, that slight hint of smug satisfaction in his eyes. He was touching her, almost idly. His fingers moved in slow, lazy circles across her stomach, not quite tickling her. His drawers were still on, she noted, though she could see his hard cock distorting the fabric. She lifted a hand to his cheek and met his lips with her own once more. She could taste her own juices in his mouth. How strange, she thought. But how his mouth had made her feel! And yet she was not sated yet. Still she ached for him, still a kind of pressure coiled low in her abdomen. She had a fancy that she might never be satisfied, that perhaps she was truly as wanton as people said. 

He nipped at her lower lip, a graze of teeth, and Demelza hummed happily. Then she turned onto her side so that she was facing him properly, and she set to work at the laces of his drawers. 

“What are you doing?” he asked her. She could hear the tease in his voice; there was no need to look up for the tell-tale glint in his eyes.

“I b’lieve you’re over-dressed,” she said, and conquered the knot in the laces. From necessity, she was brushing against the shape of his cock under the drawers. Her knuckles rubbed against him accidentally at first, but then deliberately. Ross made a sound, a groan, and Demelza hoarded the noise away deep inside her mind. She tugged at the laces, loosening them, and then she slid her hand into his drawers and clasped it around his cock.

“You little vixen,” Ross groaned. Demelza watched his face, fascinated by his expressions as she stroked her hand up and down the shaft. Not too firmly, she thought, nor yet too lightly. She knew she had got it right when Ross’s hips jerked, and then in a moment he pulled away from her, sliding off the bed so he could discard the drawers entirely. He stood naked beside the bed for a moment, and Demelza drank in the sight of him. My Ross, she thought; he is mine now, sure as I am his; even if part of him will always belong to her, there’s a part that’s mine too.

She lay on her back and held out a hand to him. There was warmth in his smile when he answered her unspoken summons. He came to her, kissed her, and settled himself between her legs.

He was hard and wanting, and she was wet and enticing, but still Ross was careful, easing his cock into her. They had coupled only once before; she was tight around him, deliciously so, but he knew he might hurt her if he thrust into her as he might like. So he was slow, sinking down little by little, and he watched her face for any hint of pain. But Demelza showed nothing but pleasure. Her eyes were wide, unfocused. Her mouth was open, lips still wet from being kissed. She clutched at his shoulders, and when at last he was seated in her, she lifted her head demandingly for another kiss. Ross obeyed her wish and kissed her gently, even as he rocked his hips against hers. 

She broke her mouth from his with a cry and a shudder, and she arched up against him. 

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.” 

The entreaty stirred him, and lust overcame caution. Ross withdrew until his cock was barely inside her quim, and then he thrust down into her, right to the hilt. Demelza keened high in her throat and then she lifted a leg, bending her knee and pressing a heel into the small of his back. It was instinctive on her part, he knew, but it spurred him on. He pressed sloppy, open-mouthed kisses to her throat, her jaw, and he rocked into her again and again. She met him, finding a rhythm with him, meeting his thrusts and making such beautiful, needy sounds. 

Ross was close now, the desire that had been building in him steadily all evening – all day – drawing near to its climax. Demelza beneath him, no longer simply his faithful servant and companion but a seductive, desirable woman. Soon enough, his wife. Her eyes were closed now, her head thrown back once more, wracked with pleasure. He had done this to her, he had made her come apart like this. And she was close too, he could tell. Her whole body was shuddering, and the muscles of her quim were contracting around his cock. It was nearly unbearable.

He worked a hand between them, and found her nub by feel alone. He swiped his thumb across it once, twice, and then Demelza cried out and spasmed. Her climax tipped Ross into his own, and he thrust into her, spilled his seed, and then he lay sprawled over her, his softening cock still held in her slick core. 

For a moment – for long moments – there was no sound other than their panting, heaving breaths. Demelza was still shaking a little, his cock in her still sending tiny shocks through her body in a way that was almost too much to bear after her peak. But still she could not help a discontented moan when he withdrew from her, and she reached for him, to keep him close.

“Shh,” Ross murmured. “I’m too heavy to rest on you like that.” 

Full of languor, Demelza watched as Ross climbed off the bed and went to the washstand in the corner. He washed himself, wiping his cock and balls and thighs, and then he damped the cloth again and brought it to her. He was so gentle, cleaning her thighs and sex, and it made her heart feel full to bursting. She was happier than she could say, happier than she could put into words. Then Ross came back to the bed and climbed in beside her. He pulled the blankets up, covering them both, then he put a hand at her waist and encouraged her to lie close to him. Demelza rested her cheek on his chest; his arm went around her shoulders. How strange, she thought, to be so close to him at last.

The candles were guttering. She should rise and blow them out, but she was loathe to leave this closeness, this warm embrace. She could hear Ross’s heartbeat, steadily thumping. She counted it to ten, and then again, before she spoke. 

“Is it always like that?” she asked softly.

“Like what?”

“So…so strong,” she said, fumbling for the right words to describe what she meant. If this was the way it always was between a man and a woman, she didn’t know how anybody ever managed much else.

Ross glanced down at her, but could see only the top of her head and her flyaway curls. Strong. Yes, strong was a good word for it, he thought. The strength of the desire he had begun to feel for her was disarming. He had rarely felt it before, or not in such a way. There had been women, of course – and Elizabeth, though that was, through circumstance and decorum, a much more chaste relationship. Certainly he had felt lust like this before. He had been attracted to women, and been found attractive enough in return, or so he supposed. But his encounters, though satisfying and pleasurable, had never been quite like this. 

“No,” he answered. “No, not always.” Not often, he thought. Would this last? Was this merely the first flush of a love affair, soon washed away in the tide? There was no way of telling. But the strength of it, the force of desire between them, was unlikely to fade too quickly. 

“Oh,” Demelza murmured. “Yes, I s’pose not.”

Ross smiled at the note of wonder in her voice, and he closed his eyes. Demelza’s breath skittered across his chest, but not unpleasantly. Her arm was draped over his waist, her head comfortably settled against him. The temptress seemed to be disappearing, leaving the ordinary companion behind in his bed. It was peculiar, and it would take getting used to, this new Demelza he was discovering and the old Demelza still there.

“Why do you suppose not?” he asked, and yawned widely. It had been a long day, and a trying one in many respects. Elizabeth’s visit, and Demelza’s aborted attempt at leaving, had left him wishing for a simpler day tomorrow. He must go to Wheal Leisure, and see Odgers, and there was the meadow still to be worked. But these were ordinary, commonplace tasks that would require no emotional exertion on his part.

“Well,” she said, “folks’d never get anything done, would they?”

For sheer bluntness, he thought admiringly, one couldn’t beat her. He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her curls, where perhaps she might barely feel it. 

“True enough,” he agreed. “Now be quiet and go to sleep.”

“Yes, Ross.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) Yes, I know the actual date as specified in the novel fell on a Sunday. Shh. Artistic licence.  
> 2) ‘kiddleys’ – essentially bars. Alcohol was sold, but not food (marking them as different from inns)


	2. Chapter 2

Demelza woke to a touch on her shoulder. Not a hand, but lips, and then hair tickling at the skin of her neck. She opened her eyes and for a moment forgot where she was. Then Ross kissed her shoulder again, and she remembered. She turned over in the bed and found Ross already fully dressed. 

“Is it late?” she asked. “Am I late?”

“Not in the least,” he assured her. “I’m early. I must see Zacky before his shift. But I thought it better you didn’t wake alone.” He stroked one finger down her shoulder and her bare arm. “Stay abed a while longer,” he suggested.

Demelza considered it for barely a moment. She felt rested and full of energy, full of a happiness that bubbled up inside her. If dawn had not yet come, it would soon. She had plenty to do, after her laziness of yesterday.

“No, I’ve work,” she said decidedly. Ross did not press her. Instead he bent over and picked up her shift from where it had fallen the night before. He gave it to her and tried not to be entirely overt in his gaze when she sat up, revealing for a moment the swell of her breasts before she pulled her shift over her head and hid herself in white cloth.

“I’ll be back in time for some breakfast,” he said. “I’ll send Jud to Illugan afterwards.” Demelza nodded, but whatever she thought, she kept it to herself. She sat in his bed, oddly demure, and were it not for his other obligations, Ross would have been sorely tempted to shed his clothing, tumble down onto the bed, and have her again. But, he thought, there was time enough, and he had much to do. He wanted to see Zacky both about Wheal Leisure and about Jinny, and Zacky would be down in the mine before long. 

Still, he kissed her before rising, both because he wished to and because he thought she would like it. Then he left her, and – since she was already awake – did not bother to quiet his footsteps on the stairs. Jud and Prudie, he thought with a contemptuous curl of his lip, could stand being woken early for one day. 

He left Nampara through the kitchen. Garrick was there, stretched out before the cold stove. He lifted his head and pricked up his ears when Ross came in, then put his head back down on his front paws when he realised that the intruder was not his mistress. Ross bent over and scratched his head, feeling an odd pang of sympathy for him. Garrick looked at him but did not bother to move; Ross was not who he wanted.

Ross walked over to Wheal Leisure, not bothering to saddle Darkie for the short distance. His ankle, of late, had bothered him so little that he was eager to take advantage of it and walk where he could. The sun rose as he walked, but it was cool and windy. The sky above the sea looked stormy; it would rain later. Demelza would be pleased, he thought. Hadn’t she said something about the garden needing rain? She was getting quite proud of her garden – for so he thought of it, though of course really he owned the land. But it was Demelza’s work that had caused it to look as it did now, well-tended and full of fresh life. 

She brought flowers into the house, too. Flowers everywhere, it sometimes seemed. In the parlour and the kitchen, on every windowsill. He imagined she had flowers in her bedroom, although he’d not been in there since showing it to her when she’d first arrived. He’d hardly noticed at first. It was only by degrees that he had come to realise that she was putting vases and bowls of fresh flowers around the house, and that she took care to remove wilting flowers before they could become dead and ugly. Wildflowers, cultivated flowers – anything she could find, it seemed, anything to add a splash of colour to a house that could, he admitted, be somewhat desolate at times. Perhaps it was so because of him; well, she was cheerful enough for the both of them. 

He reached Wheal Leisure just as Zacky Martin did, and the others whose shift in the mine was about to begin. He exchanged greetings with them all, but it was Zacky he had come to see, and he drew the man away from the main shaft to have a private word with him about Jinny.

While Ross was speaking to Zacky, Demelza was hard at work at Nampara. She had tumbled out of bed as soon as Ross had left her, dressed quickly, and gone to the kitchen to light the fire. Then she’d mixed dough for bread, set it to rise, and put a pan of water to heat for washing. She ought to have done the laundry yesterday, but so many things had happened, and Demelza had shirked her work. Today, though it might rain later, she must try to catch up. Prudie would help her, she knew. Prudie liked her well enough these days to share the workload, in the house at least.

The sun had risen by the time Prudie stirred, Jud trailing behind her, foul-tempered from a hangover. Demelza had long practice dealing with such men. Jud held no fear for her after her father. She made strong tea and gave it to him, then Prudie managed to cajole him into going to milk the cows. 

“Get ‘im from under our feet,” she said, when the kitchen door closed behind him. “Do ee make us some more tea, an’ then us’ll do some fixings for breakfast. Cap’n not up yet?”

“Up and gone to Leisure,” Demelza said. She felt light as air today, light as dandelion fluff drifting on the wind. Ross, she thought. Ross will marry me; he’s to go to Mr Odgers today, and I’ll never have to go back to Illugan; I can stay here with him forever; I’ll belong here, truly.

“Too early for decent folks,” Prudie was grumbling. “An’ you up late an’ all, learning your letters. Letters. T’ain’t for folks like us.”

Demelza gave no answer. She made Prudie more tea and then went to the pantry to fetch butter and cheese. The dough had risen and was in the oven; there would, she hoped, be a fresh-baked loaf ready for Ross when he returned for his breakfast. Already the scent of it was beginning to fill the kitchen.

“I’ll feed the chickens,” she told Prudie, going back into the kitchen. She tied on her apron and then swept her hair off her neck and tied it back, to keep it out of her way while she tended to the animals. It was only Prudie’s startled exclamation that made her remember the mark that Ross had worked into her neck, with teeth and lips and tongue.

“What be that?” Prudie demanded. “C’mere, into the light.” 

“A bruise,” Demelza said. But Prudie grasped her arm and pulled her towards the window, and though Prudie was older and fatter than Demelza, she had a great deal of strength in her when she wanted it, and Demelza could not break free. She submitted to the examination in silence. 

Prudie hissed through her teeth. “You got a man?” she asked. Demelza held her tongue. She felt, rightly or wrongly, that Ross should be the one to tell Prudie and Jud of their engagement. Prudie looked at her suspiciously, her eyes narrowed and her mouth pursed. “You been sneaking off to see some miner? Lettin’ him take liberties?”

“No!” Demelza protested at once.

“You with child?”

“No,” Demelza said again, more forcefully. She managed to tug her arm from Prudie’s grasp, and she loosed her hair again, covering the bruise as best she could with her curls. “’Tis only a bruise,” she said. “When do I have time to be sneakin’ off anywhere? I were playing with Garrick an’ got a bruise.”

Prudie, she could see, was not content. But Demelza slipped away before Prudie could deliberate further and determine that Demelza’s answers were not satisfactory. She left the kitchen, went across the yard to the stable for the chicken meal, and wondered how she might ever reconcile Prudie to the idea, let alone the reality, of her marrying Ross.

Ross returned just as Demelza was taking the fresh bread from the oven. He was distracted, but he spared her a brief smile as he took off his hat and coat. 

“Where’s Jud?” he asked, stealing a slice of cheese from the plate Demelza was putting together. His arm brushed against hers, but he did not linger or try to touch her deliberately. Prudie was sitting at the table, ostensibly chopping onions but keeping a sharp eye on him. In case, he supposed, she should come in for some displeasure. He doubted she’d done much of the work so far this morning. Not that Demelza would ever tell him. She had a strange sort of loyalty to Prudie; he supposed there was a sort of companionship there for her. She’d had little enough female company in her life, that much he knew from the occasional comments she’d made about her childhood, when he’d asked her specific questions. She rarely volunteered any information without prompting. 

“Milking,” Demelza said. She didn’t remonstrate with him for his thievery, but Ross could see the impulse there, held in check. It amused him, and he turned away to hide his smile. 

“Send him in when he’s done,” he said. “He can go across to Illugan after he’s eaten.”

“Illugan?” Prudie repeated, squinting up at him and then casting a sharp glance at Demelza. Ross looked at her too, but Demelza did not look up from her work. 

“Yes,” he said to Prudie. “Illugan. And no doubt he’ll take the whole day about it, too.” It was clear Prudie wanted to ask why, but he gave her no opportunity. “Are you still going over to Mellin Cottages today?” he asked Demelza.

“Yes, sir,” Demelza said, looking up at him now. She pushed her hair behind her ears; he caught a glimpse of the mark he’d left on her neck, and a pulse of desire rippled across him for a moment. He shook it off. “After dinner, I thought,” she was saying. “If Prudie don’t mind me leaving her to the cleaning.” Prudie looked as though she did mind, but she could hardly say so. “I baked extra bread to take over,” Demelza added. “If you don’t mind it. To go with the milk and eggs.”

“Good,” said Ross. “Whatever we can do.” The black mood descended upon him again at the thought of Jim Carter and his failure. Demelza could see it, a visible change coming to his expression. He would brood over it for days, she knew. He might be distracted from it at times, but inside there would be a dark guilt that would gnaw at him.

“I’ll take your breakfast to the parlour, sir,” she said, and poured a cup of tea for him. Ross took the plate from the table and preceded her into the parlour. Demelza set the cup down on the table for him, and then turned to leave.

“Don’t forget your own,” he muttered.

“No, sir,” she agreed. “Will you be wanting dinner to go to the mine?” He shook his head, but said nothing more. Demelza paused in the doorway, a hand at the frame, and she looked across the room at him. She tried to decide if she might say anything – if it was her place to say anything, with this changed relationship between them. But she decided not. They were not married yet, after all.

Demelza ate her breakfast while working, snatching bites between tasks. There was laundry to do, the kitchen floor to be swept and scrubbed, dinner to cook, milk pans to scald, a never-ending list of chores both in the house and the farm. Jud disappeared early, sent by Ross to Illugan, and Prudie clearly heard enough of the reason to be shocked and sullen around Demelza for the rest of the morning. 

Demelza let her be. Whatever Prudie knew or didn’t know, she would confront Demelza with it sooner or later. For now Demelza had too much work to get done if she was to find time to walk over to see Jinny later. 

Ross spent his morning working in the hay field, beating away his bad mood with physical labour. It worked a little, but Jim’s absence was keenly felt. And, selfishly, he could see that the farm would feel the loss of an able-bodied man to help with the work. Jud was unreliable, Prudie was barely better, and Demelza – 

Demelza worked hard, and he’d not stop her, once they were married. But there was a difference between a kitchen maid working in the fields, and the mistress of Nampara doing so. He would have to think about that. Not least, he thought wryly to himself, how to persuade her that it would no longer be fitting for her to do such work. It would take time for her to get used to being Mrs Poldark, just as it would take time for her to get used to calling him by name. 

Well, the banns must be read three times before they could marry. Three weeks was little enough time, perhaps, but it was a beginning. She would get used to the change in her status. As would he.

“I’ll ride to Sawle,” he said to Demelza when he returned to the house for dinner. “It shouldn’t take long. You should hurry if you’re going over to Mellin, it’s going to rain soon.” He ducked his head under the pump to cool himself off, and took the towel that Demelza held out to him.

“I’ve my cloak,” Demelza said. “I can stop with Jinny for a while, if it starts.” 

“See that you do.” Ross rubbed his hair dry and glanced around to see if Prudie was about. She wasn’t. He reached out and grasped Demelza’s wrist and tugged her close to him. Her smile was sweet and coy when he held her around her waist. She was so slender that he could almost span her waist with his hands. He brushed his mouth against hers once, twice, then kissed her properly. How was it, he asked himself, that he could not seem to resist these urges to kiss her? He supposed he had spent too long repressing his physical desires, and now here was a pretty, willing girl who was freely available to him. Having once crossed that line, there was now nothing to stop him from indulging.

And Demelza certainly seemed willing to let him indulge, to let him give in to these impulses to kiss her and touch her. 

Until, at least, she broke away from him with an apologetic look.

“There’s a pie in the oven,” she excused herself. “It’ll burn.” Ross let her go, and Demelza hurried back to the kitchen to rescue her pie. Prudie had made herself scarce, and Jud was not yet back from Illugan, so Ross ate with Demelza at the kitchen table. Afterwards, while Demelza tidied the kitchen, he stood at the kitchen door and looked up at the sky. Garrick sat at his feet, watching the chickens in the yard. He knew better than to chase them. It was a lesson he’d learned as a pup, though there were more hens here than he’d ever had cause to see in Illugan.

“I’ll take you over to Mellin,” Ross said at last, when Demelza had cleared away the dishes and swept the table clear of crumbs. “You might miss the rain, then.”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed. Garrick left Ross’s side and loped out into the yard, tail wagging as he went. The chickens scattered, but he paid them no attention. Demelza took the dog’s place beside Ross, peering up at the grey, cloudy sky. She would have to fetch the washing in before she went, she thought. It would have to finish drying in the kitchen, by the stove. 

Ross put his arm around her waist, almost absently. Demelza held her breath for a moment. His hand settled at her hip, and she could feel the warmth of him against her side. 

“Will Mr Odgers object?” she asked then. “Won’t he think it’s fast?”

“If he objects, I’ll try to get a license,” Ross said. He didn’t look at her; his gaze was fixed outside somewhere. Demelza frowned a little, thoughtfully. She wasn’t sure what a license entailed, but she supposed it meant that Mr Odgers would not be able to object to the speed of the marriage. Though of course there were many girls who wound up at the altar fast enough, finding themselves with child. At least that wasn’t so for her. There was no obligation laid upon him. He had offered marriage freely, without the ties of a child to bind him. 

He didn’t love her, of course. Demelza was not foolish enough to think that. He still loved Elizabeth, and probably he always would. What he gave her was affection, fondness – friendship, even. It was enough. It had to be, because Demelza had loved him from her earliest days at Nampara, and that love had only deepened over time. If he’d never spoken of marriage, most likely she would have accepted anything else he would give her – and if he’d given her nothing, she would have gone away in silence, licking her wounds the way Garrick did when he’d got himself tangled in a bramble. She would have gone back to her father, or tried to find work elsewhere, and even if she had got with child after that one night, she would never have tried to hold him to account.

He didn’t love her, but he was going to marry her, and Demelza felt more happiness than she’d ever known, even when he’d fought her father to stop him taking her away. 

Ross saddled Darkie while Demelza brought in the washing, and then she mounted the horse behind him and they rode over to Mellin cottages. He didn’t linger there, having no desire to face Jinny Carter yet, but he reminded Demelza to wait out the rain, if it should come while she was visiting Jinny. Then he rode over to Sawle to see Odgers, and suffered a brief but uncomfortable conversation with the man about the reading of the banns, and the fixing of a time and date afterwards for the marriage ceremony. Odgers preferred the Tuesday; Ross was keen for it to happen on the Monday. He could not say why he wanted such haste – neither to himself nor to the nosy curate who no doubt disapproved of the entire affair – but want it he did. In the end Odgers agreed, and the time was set. 

That done, Ross spared a few moments, while near the graveyard, to visit his parents’ grave. He rarely came here, for he rarely came to Sawle church at all, and when he did come, he never lingered to look at the graves of his parents and sibling. But he paused for a few minutes now, looking down at the headstone upon which were engraved the names of his mother and father.

He remembered so little of his mother that he could not begin to guess at what she might think of him taking his kitchen maid as a wife. But Joshua Poldark – oh yes, Ross could well imagine how such a conversation might have gone. The lascivious look, the belligerence, but then the reminder that while nobody would think twice about a gentleman tupping a maid, nobody would ever entertain a gentleman who went and _married_ the girl.

He supposed it was not something that he could dismiss out of hand, but Ross had never particularly cared what society thought of him, and he had no intention of beginning now. He had his farm, his tenants, his mine – and if the profits so far had been meagre, he still held great hopes for Wheal Leisure. He had friends here, who worked side by side with him in the fields and in the mine. If gentle society shunned him for marrying Demelza, then so be it. He could do nothing other than marry her, now. If he were another man, perhaps he could choose another path, but his character was set. For better or worse, he would marry Demelza in less three weeks, and that was an end to it.

The rain began, lightly at first but growing heavier with every minute, and Ross chose to go to the mine rather than back to Nampara. There was nothing he could do in the fields while the rain lasted. He hoped Demelza had the good sense to wait with Jinny Carter until it stopped. 

Demelza did wait, for a while. Jinny had been pleased to see her, but pale and exhausted. The baby had hardly stopped crying all night, she admitted, and Demelza could see how worn she was. When Jinny had tried to offer her hospitality, Demelza had overruled her and made her sit down by the fire with a bowl of stew and a piece of bread. Then she’d swiftly put the cottage to rights, doing the work that Jinny had been too tired and distressed to manage. The bread, milk and eggs had been gratefully received, and after she’d cleaned the cottage, Demelza made a dish of tea for them both.

When the rain started, Jinny insisted that Demelza should wait, and they both thought the rain might be over soon, so Demelza made more tea and held the baby. But soon enough it became clear that the rain was not going to ease, and Demelza brushed aside Jinny’s concerns.

“I’ve too much work to be waitin’ on the rain,” she said, apologetically. “Captain Poldark gave me leave to come over here, but there’s always something needs doin’.”

“You’ll catch cold, goin’ now,” Jinny fretted. “An’ after all ee’s done for me. Fine way for me to shows thanks.”

“I don’t do it for thanks, Jinny,” said Demelza. “No more do Captain Poldark. I’ll be fine. It’s not far, an’ I’ll go quick.” Her cloak had a hood, Nampara wasn’t far, and she was hardly likely to dawdle in such weather. 

Still, by the time she reached the house, her hair was plastered to her head and her skirt was soaked up to her knees. Her stockings chafed against her skin, and her cloak slapped at her arms and legs with every step. She took her cloak and shoes off outside the kitchen door, then slipped inside. 

“You daft child,” Prudie scolded her. She was sitting comfortably beside the fire, her feet propped up on a log from the woodpile. But the kitchen table had been scrubbed, the floor had been swept, and the dry washing had been folded neatly ready for ironing. Prudie had not been idle in Demelza’s absence. “You lookin’ to catch your death?” Prudie demanded. “Set the kettle on an’ go change your frock.”

Demelza obeyed, though first she stripped off her stockings so she wouldn’t leave wet marks on the stairs. Once she reached her room she undressed to the skin, for even her shift was damp enough to be uncomfortable. Her other shift was in the pile of washing downstairs, waiting to be ironed, so she had to go without. Her frock made her decent enough, or so she judged. She rubbed her hair until it was as dry as she could get it, and then she went back down to the kitchen, to sit with Prudie beside the fire and warm herself through.

“You’ve gone half-saved,” Prudie muttered. “Tramping about in the rain, leavin’ me to do the work, an’ me with me bad hand and me back and poor achin’ legs.”

“Your hand’s better,” Demelza said, but she lacked any impatience when she said it. She was used to Prudie’s grumbles by now, and she sensed that these smaller, ordinary complaints were Prudie’s way of working up to the bigger complaint. “I had to go see Jinny Martin, didn’t I?” she excused herself. “She’s that upset, an’ with the baby.”

“No business leavin’ your own work to see to her,” Prudie said firmly. “Her as has folks all around to care for her, and me left all by meself. T’idn’t right.” Demelza did not argue. She had had Ross’s approval and assent, and that was all that mattered to her. Prudie might moan and scold, but she was not Demelza’s mistress, and there was little enough she could do. Prudie settled herself more comfortably in her chair and scowled at Demelza. “Half-saved,” she said again. “Lost what sense you ever had.” 

Demelza gritted her teeth and said nothing. 

“What do ee think will happen to ee, when he’s tired of it?” Prudie demanded at last. “An’ he will tire of ee, they always do. He’s no different to the rest.”

“He is different,” Demelza said, keeping her voice quiet and soft. “You know he is, Prudie.”

“He’ll get bored of ee and send ee packin’,” Prudie retorted. “An’ serve you right, impudent baggage that you are.” Anger rippled through Demelza, but she kept a tight hold of it. It would serve no good to be angry with Prudie, nor to show it. She had to get Prudie on her side, somehow. Prudie would make life unbearable otherwise. Once Prudie was appeased, she would work on Jud.

“He’s gone to see Mr Odgers,” she said instead. Prudie’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. “He says he wants the banns be read this Sunday,” Demelza added.

“He never,” Prudie said.

“S’true.”

Prudie spat into the fireplace and shook her head. “T’idn’t right,” she muttered. “Not even Cap’n Ross be that soft in th’ head.”

“I never asked for it,” Demelza offered then, soft and quiet still, trying to feel her way towards Prudie’s approval – or at least her acceptance. “I never, Prudie. I know I were foolish, an’ I was goin’ to go back to my father, but then he come after me and said he’d take me to wife.” 

Prudie said nothing. Demelza rose and put another log onto the fire, and then went to the pantry to fetch flour and butter. She would cook a stew for supper, she decided. Ross liked her stews. And something for after, too; there were plenty of eggs, more than enough for a custard, and she knew he would like that.

“You’re both daft as each other,” Prudie said when Demelza returned to the kitchen. And this seemed to be as much as she felt inclined to say, for she shuffled about in her chair once more, and then appeared to fall asleep.

Ross came home late from the mine. He had not intended to spend quite so long at Wheal Leisure, but he’d worked alongside the men until the end of their shift, and then he’d lingered, talking with Zacky and the Daniel brothers. All three wanted to know more about Jim’s trial, and he told them what he could, before bitterness choked his throat. Then Mark and Paul went ahead, and Ross strolled towards Mellin Cottages with Zacky and told him of his impending marriage. 

Zacky’s eyebrows rose, but he seemed merely surprised, not disapproving.

“She’s a nice girl,” he said. “That kind to our Jinny.” He glanced at Ross sidelong. “Miner’s daughter, in’t she?” Ross confirmed it. “Well,” said Zacky, “I don’t think it’s ever been said you were one for takin’ an easier road.”

“What use do I have for a society wife?” Ross countered. This was an argument he had gone over in his mind already, and he knew it was one he would face from all sides. “I’m a poor farmer, Zacky, with hardly a penny to my name. Any woman I marry must expect a level of hardship, and not many gentlewomen are used to hard work.” Not like Demelza, who carried more than her weight in the house and on the farm. She was capable, hard-working, and so accustomed to poverty that a pair of shoes, new and unworn by anyone else, had been such a wonder to her that she had been unable to speak when presented with them. Two simple dresses had made her smile as if he’d given her the world.

He was not so poor that he could not afford to keep a wife, to keep her clothed and shod, fed and sheltered. And Demelza was not so used to comfort that she would begrudge him the lack of the finer things that a more gently-born lady might. 

“True enough,” Zacky said peaceably. “Well, I do hope you’ll be happy, Ross.” There was a weighty undercurrent to his words, and Ross nodded once and then they spoke no more of it. Verity was not the only one of his friends who had seen how troubled he had been since returning to Cornwall, but until now Zacky had never so much as hinted that he knew how far Ross had sunk into his own despair at times. Nor would he again, Ross knew. And perhaps he was leaving the despair behind him now. Demelza cheered him, though he did not love her as he loved Elizabeth. But Demelza’s company, her simple joys and the delight of sharing her bed – these things were enough to draw him from the lingering darkness that still threatened to submerge him more often than he would like.

By the time Ross reached Nampara, the sun was beginning to set. It painted bright streaks of orange and pink across the horizon. The earlier clouds had been swept away by the rain. The sky was clear, and the sea calm. It would be cold tonight. Almost idly, he thought about how he might warm up both himself and Demelza. He assumed that Demelza would share his bed again, but of course it was only an assumption. He’d not asked her whether she would prefer to return to her own room until they were married, as perhaps she ought, if he were to cling to any pretence of respectability. But she’d shown no sign of wanting that, and had made no objection last night. Still, perhaps he should suggest it, just in case.

He unsaddled his horse himself, rather than find Jud and order him to do it, and then went in search of hot water. He found Prudie in the kitchen, but not Demelza, and Prudie had clearly been told or found out about what he intended for Demelza, for she wouldn’t look at him and only mumbled a response to his order. But she boiled a kettle full of water and took it up to his room with only a half-hearted complaint, muttered under her breath, about her ‘poor back’. Ross decided that, in this case, discretion was indeed the better part of valour. He retired to his room to clean himself up, and refrained from asking Prudie where Demelza was.

When he returned downstairs there was still no sign of his intended wife, so Ross left the house and went for a leisurely walk around the nearest fields, noting where work needed to be done. He checked the snares he had set, and returned to Nampara with three rabbits. Garrick met him in the yard, barking exuberantly. He’d caught the scent of rabbit, and Ross had to hold them up, out of the dog’s reach.

“Garrick! Come back ‘ere!”

It was Demelza. There was a smudge of flour on her cheek. Ross handed her the rabbits and wiped the flour away. 

“Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t have to, this time of year,” Demelza said, looking the rabbits over. “This’n’s a mother, look.” She showed him the signs of it, but Ross shrugged his shoulders.

“They’re a menace and a pest,” he reminded her. “ _No_ , Garrick. Go away. Hunt your own rabbits.” Garrick barked one more time, and then he whined and sat down. He made no further attempt to get the rabbits, but his eyes were fixed upon them. “That dog will have those the moment you turn your back,” Ross said.

“No, he’ll be good,” Demelza said, defending her first and most faithful friend without thought. “I’ll string ‘em up good and high, he won’t get ‘em.” She nudged Garrick with a foot. “Eh?” she said to him. “Go catch a rat, be useful.” Garrick’s ears pricked up. He knew the word ‘rat’, and he stood up and loped off towards the barn. Demelza smiled after him, and then turned her smile towards Ross. “See?” she said. Garrick was a decent rat-catcher, when the mood was upon him. He preferred rabbits and gulls – Demelza supposed that rats were somewhat beneath his dignity – but he caught and killed enough rats that nobody could deny his usefulness.

“I see that he knows how to get what he wants,” said Ross dryly. “Well, how was Jinny?”

“Oh, well enough,” she said, frowning a little. “Tired, mostly, I think. The child was fractious last night. She was that glad of the food, though.” She turned to go back inside, and Ross followed her into the kitchen. The stew for supper was cooking. She had made a custard for a sweet. A second dough was rising, for Jud had returned from Illugan with a fine appetite and had eaten all the bread that had been left from the morning’s baking. But Demelza couldn’t complain, not when Ross put a possessive arm around her waist and gave her a sweet, chaste kiss.

“What was that for?” she asked, laughing, when he let her go. 

“Do I need a reason?” Ross returned, taking the rabbits from her and going to a drawer to find twine. He went to hang the rabbits in the larder, well above Garrick’s reach, and heard Demelza start to sing softly. He stood in the larder doorway for a moment, watching her sweep the kitchen. Her feet were bare. He glanced to the fire and saw her shoes, set neatly to dry. So she’d been caught in the rain, then – or more likely, come home despite it. He looked for any trace of dampness about her, and realised she wore her other dress now, the one that Garrick had ripped a piece out of once, and no shift beneath it – and her hair was particularly wild and untamed, as it might be if she’d had a good soaking.

But she was singing. She looked happy, or at the very least content. He had not the heart to do or say anything to stop that.

He forgot that he had intended to ask her if she felt she should keep to her own bed until it was much later. Night had fallen, and the fire in the parlour had burned low. Ross had idled over a newspaper he’d picked up when he had last been in Truro, and Demelza had spent the evening sitting on the floor at his feet, ostensibly mending one of his shirts, but mostly gazing into the fire and thinking her own inscrutable thoughts.

At length her head came to rest against his knee. It startled him, but a glance revealed that Demelza was asleep, the mending fallen from her hands onto the floor. Ross stroked her hair back from her face, but she awoke at the light touch.

“Oh,” she said confusedly. “Oh, sir, I’m sorry – I did ought to get to bed.” She pulled away from him and gathered the shirt into her work basket. Ross folded his newspaper and set it aside.

“I should have asked you,” he said, watching as she scrambled to her feet. “Do you feel we should not – that is, would you prefer to keep to your own bed, until the wedding?”

Demelza looked at him with wide eyes. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. She had simply assumed that he wished for her to stay in his bed, and that the wedding would merely be a formal mark of their changed relationship. Plenty of men and women shared a bed before marriage. Perhaps, she thought, Prudie was right; perhaps he’ll tire of me, even before a wedding; perhaps I’ve displeased him somehow. She tried to think of what she might have done to fall from favour.

“Why, sir?” she asked. “Did I not – have I done something I oughtn’t?”

“No,” Ross said, seeming surprised at the idea. “Of course not.” He rose and held out his hand for hers. “Come to bed, then,” he invited. Demelza let him take her hand, and he held it tight, pulling her after him as he extinguished the lamps. Then they made their way upstairs, through the mostly-dark house, blowing out the candles in the hallway as they went.

Ross’s bedroom was dark until he lit a candle. But Demelza didn’t need the light to undress by, and she had little enough to take off tonight. She unfastened her frock and slipped out of it, and then folded it neatly and put it on the dresser. Naked now, the cool evening made her skin goose-pimpled. She scampered into the bed before she could get chilled, and Ross chuckled at her as he undressed.

“You know, a nightgown is often considered quite useful against the cold,” he teased her. All that showed above the blankets was her head. For a moment it made him feel old and lecherous, as if she was still the ragged little child he’d brought home from the fair. 

“Never had a nightgown,” Demelza said. “I sleep in my shift, mostly. ‘cept one’s still wet and the other’s waiting for ironing.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Ross could find no answer. He supposed he only had himself to blame; she’d come to Nampara with almost nothing, after all, and he’d been slow enough about getting her some decent clothing. Two shifts and two dresses, he remembered, plus stockings and shoes. He’d not thought about a nightgown for her, nor undergarments. He’d assumed Prudie would manage that sort of thing. Demelza, of course, had not asked for anything, for she never asked for things for herself.

He rummaged among his own clothes, found an old shirt, and gave it to her.

“Use this,” he said. Demelza’s smile was radiant, and she sat up in order to pull the shirt over her head. Ross caught a glimpse of her white, flat stomach and her small, smooth breasts. Then the shirt covered her, and Demelza burrowed under the blankets once more. Ross laughed again, and finished undressing. He donned his own nightshirt, cleaned his teeth, and joined her in the bed. He pulled her close against him, arm around her waist, her head coming to rest on his chest.

“Your feet,” he remarked, “are abominably cold.” Demelza pressed her feet against his shins and he pinched her. Demelza laughed softly, and took her feet away from him. He wondered if she was still sleepy, or whether coming up the stairs had woken her. Her shirt had ridden up, so there was warm skin beneath his hand at her waist. There was a strong temptation to move his hand just slightly and discover more of her. But Demelza yawned, and rubbed her cheek against him, cat-like, and Ross abandoned such thoughts. There would be time enough, and she had already fallen asleep once.

“I’m that tired,” Demelza murmured. She felt lazy and contented, curled against Ross like this. He was warm beside her, and he warmed her where she lay against him. She felt wrapped up in him, both from his arm around her and from wearing his shirt. There was a sort of safety in it, too, as well as the joy of being chosen by him. The threat of returning to her father had laid heavy upon her, but now Ross had sent word to Illugan, and Mr Odgers had been instructed to read the banns, and she felt a deep relief in the knowledge that she would never have to go back to the father who had beaten her whenever he’d had the drink in him.

Her life here at Nampara had changed her. She could recognise it, even though she could not have explained it to anyone. When she had come here, a beating had seemed a perfectly normal thing. But Ross had been disgusted at the idea of a father beating his daughter bloody, and gradually Demelza had grown beyond the child who had submitted to beatings with, if not meekness, then at least an understanding that such things could not be avoided. Ross had helped bring about that change in her. Ross had never raised a hand to her, though he had once threatened to do so if he ever caught her drunk again, after she’d found a bottle of gin in the library and drunk the whole of it.

“What are you thinking?” Ross asked, breaking into her introspection. Demelza offered up a little of her mind, and Ross’s arm around her tightened. “Your father is a bully,” he said. “And a child is an easy target.”

“I s’pose,” said Demelza, not quite agreeing. “Did your father ever beat you?”

“Oh, once or twice I earned myself a good thrashing,” said Ross wryly, thinking back over the exuberances and misdemeanours of his childhood. “All well deserved, I assure you.” Though his father had never beaten him so hard that blood had been spilled. Demelza made a sleepy, thoughtful sort of noise. Then she wriggled a little. 

“I’m not so _very_ tired,” she said. Ross smiled, because she wasn’t looking up at him to see it. 

“Oh?” he said. “What did you have in mind? A stroll through the apple trees?” Her feet, he discovered a moment later when she retaliated by poking her toes against his shins, were still very cold. Ross chuckled, and rolled her onto her back. Well, he thought, and why not, if she was offering? He slid a hand under her shirt, trailing his fingers up her leg and over a protruding hipbone. “Something more like this?” he suggested. Demelza’s eyes glittered in the candlelight. She was the siren again, the temptress. Her lips were parted a little, and when he moved his hand up to her breast, her breath hitched pleasingly. 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“Will you be too cold without this?” he asked, pushing the shirt up as he spoke, and shifting down the bed a little so he could press a line of kisses from navel to sternum. Demelza shook her head. He kissed her, unhurried and exploratory. He wanted her, but he was in no particular rush, and Demelza was languid and somehow seductive with it. She lifted her arms around him and sighed happily into his mouth when he took her breast into his hand.

She liked how it felt when he touched her breasts. It was a fizzing in her stomach, curling down into her loins, and it made her want to arch up into his hands. He pinched at her nipple, just a little, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make her moan into his mouth. He chuckled, his breath warm against her wet lips, and he kissed her jaw and then her throat. His cheeks were rough with stubble, but that too was pleasurable, the way the short bristles brushed against her skin.

“You like that,” Ross murmured, tweaking her nipple again, and then moving to the other. Demelza couldn’t find words, but she dug her fingers into his shoulders and nodded. She felt Ross’s smile against her collarbone. Yes, she liked it. She liked everything he had done to her. Though like was not the right word, it was not big enough to encompass what she felt.

Ross kissed her again, wet and sloppy and indescribably perfect. He was half-resting on her now, his legs beside hers, his cock pressed against her thigh, arms braced to hold the bulk of his weight off her. He was surrounding her; Ross’s bed beneath her, his shirt tucked up above her breasts, Ross himself above her. His hair was wild and his eyes were dark. This was for her, she thought; this is mine now, this look of his; nobody else will see it; I must share the rest of him, but this is mine.

She wanted more. There was an ache, a pressure, deep in her belly and in her loins. She wanted him to take her again, to bring her to a peak and ease the ache. The way he was lying meant that his thigh was between her legs. Demelza rubbed herself against him, wet slickness against the hard, muscled thigh. It was the nub that gave her most satisfaction, she had found – something stroking or rubbing against that little nub of flesh that Ross seemed to find so unerringly whenever his fingers quested between her legs. She loved to have him deep inside her, of course, his cock in her sex, fulfilling some deep, instinctual need. Groin to groin, breast to breast, surrounded by him and filled by him. Taken and possessed. But it was the nub that made her see sparks behind her eyes.

So she rubbed against him, whining high in her throat when it wasn’t enough.

Ross huffed a laugh and nipped at her collarbone. 

“Did you want something?” he inquired. Demelza clenched her legs around him, her hips stuttering with little movements that she didn’t seem able to help. She unleashed a torrent of cursing that he’d thought long excised from her vocabulary. “Language,” he scolded, but he was highly amused. It was a rare thing to draw more than a ‘Judas God’ from her these days. 

“Then _do_ something,” Demelza said, tangling a hand in his hair. It was a command that Ross was quite happy to obey. It was intoxicating, to feel and to see how eager she was. A keen student in this as in every other thing she set her mind towards. He could feel how wet she was; she was leaving dampness on his thigh. He shifted a little, and coaxed her legs wide apart so he could lie between them. His cock slid against her opening, against her nub, glorious slick friction. Demelza gave a breathy sigh and rocked up against him. She was pulling at his hair a little, but Ross didn’t care. It didn’t hurt.

He kissed her again. Her lips were plump and reddened from kissing, and he could not get enough of her. 

“ _Ross_ ,” she said pleadingly. Suddenly leisure had no place, and Ross lifted himself up so the head of his cock was at her entrance, between the parted lips of her quim. He held himself there, staring down at her. There was a trickle of sweat between her breasts. Her eyes were dark and her mouth was so very red. 

He thrust in, slow and steady. Demelza cried out, coiled tension in her belly winding even tighter. He waited in her for a moment, as if to give her time to adjust to the fullness that was his cock inside her, but though there was a hint of uncomfortable stretch inside her, Demelza wanted him to move. She kissed where she could reach – his cheek, his neck, his bristly jaw – and she lifted her pelvis against his, as if she could bring them even closer together. 

Ross took the hint, and they fumbled into a rhythm of thrusts and moans. It was both fierce and tender, his cock driving into her but his mouth soft when he kissed her. It was like the sea, Demelza thought wildly. Gentle waves lapping at her feet in the cove, and big waves crashing against the rocks further out. This was a wave made of lust and heat and it submerged her. She reached a peak, her limbs trembling with it, her muscles tightening and then, as she crashed down, relaxing again to leave her boneless, weightless in the bed.

Ross sank down into her once more, and then he peaked too, with a grunt and a moan that might have been her name.

They held each other close for a while afterwards, panting for breath, sweat cooling on their skin. Then Ross pulled from her, and she could feel seed spilling out into her coarse pubic hair. It occurred to her to worry about the state of the sheets, but Ross fetched a cloth and cleaned her, as he had before. Demelza accepted it without a word, closing her eyes and hoarding the gesture close to her heart as a sign of his affection for her. 

When Ross came back to the bed, Demelza curled around him, cat-like, her head resting below his breastbone. He played with her hair idly, stroking his fingers through it, wrapping a curl around his thumb and then releasing it. He felt deeply relaxed, in mind as well as in body. He had had physical release, but there was a mental release as well, and a pleasing peace to be found in simply lying here with Demelza beside him. There was no need to talk; the silence was anything but awkward. Demelza yawned once or twice. The candle beside the bed flickered in a slight breeze. 

He would have to ride over to Trenwith soon, he thought idly. Francis and Elizabeth did not attend church every Sunday, so it was conceivable that they would not hear the banns read for the first time, but he could not in good conscience let them hear the news from the second or even the third reading of the banns. And there was the other matter, as well. Elizabeth had asked him to speak to Francis about his gaming, and other habits undesirable to a young wife, though not in themselves habits that were unusual in a country gentleman.

Habits that he himself had once fallen into. He had gambled and gone with prostitutes and harlots, he had been in debt. But no longer. The war had changed all that, and now there would be Demelza to think of too. No gentleman could avoid completely a game of cards, but he was wiser than he had been when he was sent into the army to avoid all manner of trouble. He only wished that Francis could see all that he had, before he lost it all. A beautiful young wife, a healthy son, a mine that was perhaps struggling a little, but was at least still working – unlike so many of the local mines. Francis had so much, and yet it seemed, from what Elizabeth said, that he was careless with it. 

Well, not that Ross could do much good about it. Francis would call it interference, and hypocrisy given Ross’s own past. But Ross had agreed to Elizabeth’s request, and he would speak to his cousin. The two purposes could be combined into one trip. He would send a note over to Trenwith tomorrow to arrange a meeting next week. 

And, too, he must find a new man to hire for the farmwork. Jim Carter had been hardworking and strong, and only his lungs had kept him from the mines. Most other men in the district worked down one mine or another. There would be a few, though – perhaps some who, like Jim, could no longer work underground because of congested chests. A replacement for Jim, though never somebody to take his place. And he thought some of Zacky Martin’s children were growing old enough for some work. Mrs Zacky would be pleased if they could avoid the mines for a while yet. They could help in the fields, and with the stock on the farm. That would ease the load on Demelza, who had somehow transformed herself from kitchen wench to housekeeper without him really noticing it. And now she must make another transformation, from servant to mistress. More hands in the fields and farm would mean she would have more leisure time. That, he suspected, would be crucial in his campaign to gently take away some of her burden of work. She would have more time for her garden, then. That was a good way to put it to her. Mistress Poldark of Nampara could garden, growing herbs and flowers alike, but perhaps should no longer be quite so active in haymaking or helping to plough a field.

But Demelza was a fast learner. She would easily enough pick up what she might and might not do. The distinctions might be slight, almost inconsequential, but they were there nonetheless.

Demelza’s thoughts were smaller. Her world had expanded since coming to Nampara, but her life was still occupied with small, day-to-day tasks and chores. Tomorrow she must make butter, she thought as Ross played with her hair. And there was the ironing to do. Prudie might do that – she could do it sitting at the kitchen table, she’d only have to stir to fetch a fresh iron from the fire. Fish for supper. Demelza would walk over to Sawle for some fresh fish; Pally Rodgers was sure to have some. The stable needed mucking out, but Jud would do that. Tabitha Bethia was getting fat. Fat like Prudie, and about as idle most of the time. The cat preferred sleeping in the parlour to catching mice, but Demelza supposed she caught enough, to be growing so fat. The dairy would need to be scrubbed after she churned.

She yawned, and shifted herself into a position more comfortable for sleeping. She had grown used to sleeping alone since coming to Nampara, but she liked to sleep with Ross in his bed. Her own bed was comfortable enough, warm enough, but this – this was _his_ bed, the sheets smelled of him, and he was beside her, often touching her, even if it was only his hand on her hip. Now she lay on her side beside him, and he rolled onto his side so they were facing each other. He was inscrutable. So rarely could she tell what he was thinking. His scar was vivid on his face this evening, some trick of the candlelight throwing it into sharp relief against his skin.

“You _did_ get caught in the rain today, didn’t you?” he asked her suddenly. Demelza blinked owlishly at him.

“No,” she denied. It was true enough, she thought, for she’d not been walking back when it started to rain. Ross lifted an eyebrow, and she wriggled a little and confessed. “It didn’t look like it was going to stop,” she said, excusing herself. “An’ I’d that much work to get done. I dried off quick enough, once I got in.”

“If you catch cold, you’ve only yourself to blame.”

“I won’t,” said Demelza with confidence. She was hardly ever ill. She could only think of once or twice that she’d been ill since coming to Nampara. A dowsing in the rain was hardly likely to give her so much as a sniffle. She was of hardy Cornish stock, and she came from a people for whom illness meant loss of wages. She could not remember a time when she had been ill enough to remark upon it. Coughs and colds, as a child, but few of those since coming to Nampara, where she had enough to eat and good clothes to keep her warm – and a strict insistence on personal cleanliness that, she knew now, was a great help in combating the ailments she could remember in herself and others as a child in Illugan.

“Hm.” Ross was amused, but no doubt she was right. He lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, and lingered for a moment, tracing the line of her jaw with his fingers. Her skin was growing tanned from the sun. Her lips were swollen, her eyes were half-closed, sated and content. She was not beautiful precisely, but there was a vivaciousness about her that made up for any lack of classical beauty. Did he desire her for herself, he wondered, or did her mere feminine presence satisfy a carnal appetite long suppressed? It was pointless to speculate. Time would tell.

Demelza yawned again, and then smiled sleepily. She looked like the ordinary Demelza again, the workday Demelza, the maid-turned-housekeeper who tended so diligently to his house and so quietly to his every need. It was disconcerting. This Demelza seemed to have no place in his bed, and yet here she was, and here she would stay. He had chosen to have it so. He would have to get used to finding this Demelza in his bed – and, perhaps, the other Demelza in the daylight hours.

Her eyes were closed now. Her breathing was slower. She was drifting into sleep, a peaceful slumber pulling her from him and into a dream world of her own creation. Demelza sleeping was easier to grasp; she became a known quantity, a warm body beside him in the bed, neither servant nor siren. 

“Are you asleep?” he asked her at length, quietly so that he would not wake her if she was. Demelza made a noise, a drowsy hum from her throat, but she did not open her eyes, nor stir in any way. Ross turned over in the bed to blow out the candle on the bedside table. Then he settled down to sleep, one hand reaching out to hold hers. Their fingers tangled together, and they slept.


	3. Chapter 3

The banns were read for the first time on Sunday, and on the next day Prudie – who seemed to have realised that the impending wedding was an unavoidable fact – came to Ross and, amid a stream of complaints, managed to suggest to him that perhaps Demelza ought to have a new dress.

“Her frocks is good an’ proper for work,” she said, “but t’ain’t fitty for a weddin’, sir, not even if she was just marryin’ some half-growed boy from Sawle.” There was a flicker of distaste in her expression at that, as if the idea of Demelza marrying a miner from Sawle did not please her. It amused Ross to see it, though he could not entirely escape noticing that he himself did not seem to like that idea any more than Prudie did.

“Well, and?” he said, somewhat impatiently, for he would be late starting now, and there was plenty of work waiting for him in the fields. Prudie scowled and looked as though she would like to be able to give him a scolding the way she did Jud, when Jud deliberately misheard her. “I’ve no objection to it,” Ross added. “Why should I?”

“I did find some red cloth in the library that’d do,” said Prudie, “but she d’need sommat else too, by and by. Sommat finer.” She sniffed. “If she’s to be mistress.” It was clear that she still disapproved of the notion. Ross cared not for her approval or disapproval. He would marry Demelza, and she would become mistress of Nampara. That was settled, and Prudie would have to live with it.

“Fine,” he said. “I must ride in to Truro this week anyway, I’ll pick something up then. Use the red cloth for a dress now, if you think she needs a new one.” He supposed Prudie was probably right. Demelza had few enough clothes, and cloth for a best dress was hardly going to ruin him. He thought that she would probably need other things as well, but he would have to leave that to her and Prudie. Demelza would learn to ask for money for her own needs before long, he was sure. Fabric for a fine new dress might encourage her in that direction. He couldn’t afford luxuries, but certainly he could provide any essentials she needed.

Prudie took the news to Demelza, who was churning milk in the dairy. It was hard work, and Demelza’s arms and shoulders were already aching. Prudie, in an odd moment of compassion and generosity, offered to take over for a few minutes to let Demelza sit and take a sip of water.

“But I don’t need a new dress,” said Demelza, accepting the help but frowning at the message Prudie brought her. “One’s nearly good as new, and the other ain’t – isn’t, I mean – it isn’t bad, though the rip shows a bit, I s’pose.”

“An’ how’d it show on me, if I was to let ee be wed in old rags?” Prudie demanded. Her arms went up and down, lifting and dropping the butter churn. The milk sloshed against the sides of it, slowly becoming more solid. “You as hadn’t had no mother for these long years, an’ me bein’ the closest thing what you have.” She sniffed. “Wouldn’t be fitty. Wouldn’t be proper.”

Demelza felt a swell of unexpected fondness. Prudie had resented her when she had first come to Nampara, and had only gradually grown to accept her and even, perhaps, to like her. But Prudie had taught her things, parts of housework and housekeeping that she had never had any idea of when she’d been drudge for her family. Prudie had taught her to sew, and had helped her to make her shifts, and combinations for underclothes. If Prudie was saying this sort of thing now, it meant that Prudie was beginning to come to terms with Demelza’s betrothal to Ross.

“If you think it’s best, Prudie,” she said, playing on Prudie’s pride a little. “But I’ve no material,” she added, “and no coin left for buyin’ anything.”

“I found cloth,” said Prudie. “An’ even if I hadn’t, I s’pose Cap’n Poldark would buy ee a length of cloth, since he’s got this fool idea of marryin’ ee.” She sniffed again and worked the butter churn with unexpected vigour. “Fool idea,” she repeated. “You always did have ideas above your station, that ee did.”

“But I never thought of it,” Demelza protested. “I never. Honest, Prudie. An’ – an’ if he do look at me now, it’s all because you’ve helped me better myself, isn’t it?” If she could persuade Prudie of that, she thought, she might have a little more success. Whether it was true or not hardly mattered; what mattered was how it was put to Prudie. “I’d never have thought it, Prudie, but he did ask, and I…” She flushed and ducked her head, suddenly afraid that she had revealed too much. Prudie said nothing. She kept churning. Demelza stood up and went to take over once more, and Prudie sat herself down on the stool and watched Demelza work for a while.

“Folks won’t like it,” Prudie said at last. “I s’pose you know that, eh?”

Demelza nodded silently. Ross’s people, people of his own station, would surely despise her. Her own class might assume her to be…well, at best a foolish girl who had been taken advantage of, and at worst a money-grasping harlot. Oh yes, she knew well what they would all think. But would it matter? Would any of it matter, once she was Ross’s wife? She thought about Elizabeth, that stately beauty who had come here assuming she was still held highest in Ross’s thoughts and heart. Would Elizabeth’s disapproval hurt him? And Francis Poldark, his cousin – Demelza had seen him on rare occasions, and Francis’s sister Verity. There were others, too, Ross’s friends and business associates. A gentleman marrying his kitchen maid. It would be the talk of the coast.

She felt sick, but it was not a sickness with any physical cause, so she kept working, churning as hard as she could. Already the milk was beginning to thicken, beginning to turn into butter. Her stomach was churning like the butter. But Ross didn’t care, she told herself. Ross wouldn’t have asked her to marry him if he cared.

“Might as well strip an’ air your bed,” Prudie said, heaving herself to her feet. “S’not like you’re usin’ it.” In this, at least, Prudie showed no censure. She herself, after all, had never married Jud. She had simply assumed his last name. Demelza supposed that Prudie had enough self-awareness to know that she could not lecture on the impropriety of intimacy before marriage.

“Do the ironin’, please, Prudie,” Demelza called after her, but there was no response and Demelza could not leave the butter to churn itself. But later, when she had finished and her arms and back were sore, she found Prudie had done the ironing and even made a start on the pasties for dinner. They would be sent out to the fields, to Ross and Jud and the new man, Jack Cobbledick, and the eldest Martin child who had come to work in the fields. 

Demelza had found herself with two of the younger Martin children to work in the farmyard, thrust upon her with no warning. Ross had hired them on Saturday, and this morning he had informed her of their hiring scant minutes before they arrived, a boy and a girl, faces scrubbed to a shine and eager to earn their coin. They were, Ross had said, primarily to help with the farm work, but she should put them to work in the house if she wished. So Demelza had set them to mucking out the stables and the cowshed, reasoning that Prudie could keep half an eye on them while Demelza was busy, and after dinner she thought she would send them out to help Ross and the others in the fields. It was strange to feel that she had charge of these two children, and Demelza felt awkward and anxious when she had to set them work. 

Prudie seemed to have no such trouble, but then for a long time Prudie had had charge of Demelza. It was only recently that Demelza had taken Prudie’s place as housekeeper of Nampara. And now that would change yet again. In three weeks Demelza would be mistress. 

The sick feeling in her stomach stayed with Demelza all day. She was not ill, but she felt tense and unhappy. It was hot, too, and her hair stuck to the back of her neck and her forehead, even when she swept it up and tied it back. She kept thinking about Elizabeth, about the way Elizabeth had looked at her last week when she’d come to Nampara to see Ross. She thought about Ross’s cousins too, and the other fine people she’d occasionally seen here. His investors, when he’d taken her in to Truro, and then at the mine opening. All her doubts were pulled back into her mind and her heart by Prudie’s words, well-meant though they might have been.

When Ross came in for supper that night, he was served by Prudie, though it was plain to see that his meal had been cooked by Demelza. He said nothing to Prudie, but ate his meal in solitude and quiet. Outside the birds were singing. Somewhere Garrick was barking, so it was unlikely that Demelza had strayed far. Jud was rattling around the yard, doing his chores, his grumbling torrent of complaints audible even from the parlour. But no Demelza. He had not seen her since before breakfast, for he’d stayed out in the fields for his dinner, and he’d spent the day hard at work. In another month the oats would be ready for harvesting, if all went well. The meadow was nearly mowed, the long grasses piled into haystacks to feed the stock over the winter. It had been a good day’s work. Jack Cobbledick and the Martin children were hard workers, and Jud had been chivvied into pulling his weight for once.

Ross had worked as hard as the others, baking under the hot June sun. He’d gone for a bathe in Nampara Cove before coming in for his supper, to cool himself down. His hair was still wet from it. The evening would grow colder, no doubt, but for now it was still just a little too warm. Ross felt almost restless with it. He ate his supper, but afterwards could not seem to keep still. He wandered the house in search of Demelza, even going so far as to knock on her bedroom door. But Demelza was not there. She was not in the yard, nor the stable. Garrick was on the lawn in front of the house, chasing butterflies and his own tail. Ross paused to scratch the dog’s head, but then he moved on, still searching. 

He could not quite say why he wanted her, only that he had felt her absence and then, when his search of the house had been fruitless, he had wondered where she was, to be gone from the house so long. The thought occurred to him that perhaps she had been run off by Jud and Prudie – that perhaps their disapproval had been too much for her to bear, when they had more or less had charge of her upbringing since she had come to Nampara as a gangly child. But he discarded the idea as soon as it came to mind, for he knew Demelza cared little enough for anyone’s opinion save his. _His_ opinion, his approval, seemed to make her shine with brilliant happiness, a happiness that he was sometimes helpless to resist. When he praised a meal, or her progress with learning to read and write, he could hardly help returning her smiles with his own. No, he thought, Demelza would not have left Nampara because of Jud and Prudie, no matter what was said.

At last he found Demelza, coming across Nampara Combe, barefooted and her apron serving as a makeshift basket for something. She seemed thoughtful, coming through the tall grasses, but then she lifted her head and saw him. Demelza smiled then, bright and cheerful, and she skipped towards him.

“I found some strawberries!” she said, holding out her apron to show him. “Not many, but enough. I thought you’d like ‘em, as a treat.” There were flowers in her hair and stains on her apron from the strawberries, but she looked contented. Perhaps Jud and Prudie had held their tongues for once. He would be glad if they had, but rather surprised. He stole a strawberry from her apron and smirked a little at the look she gave him.

“Perfect,” he said. “Where are your shoes?”

“Oh, it was too hot for stockings,” Demelza said, shrugging her shoulders. “An’ the grass is soft enough.” Ross indulged himself for a moment in remembering the length of her legs and how they felt under his hands. Then he turned back towards Nampara, Demelza falling into step beside him, careful of her burden. “I’m sorry I weren’t there to serve your supper, sir,” she said, glancing at him sidelong, a hint of something like reserve in her expression. If she expected a chastisement, Ross would disappoint her.

“You’ll have to give up calling me that sooner rather than later,” he observed. “The banns were read yesterday. I’m not the kind of man to expect his wife to call him ‘sir’.” There were such men, but he held no truck with such ideas. 

“Yessir,” she said. Her eyes glittered in the fading sunlight, and Ross huffed a laugh, oddly pleased by her teasing. He reached out to steal another strawberry, but Demelza twisted out of his reach. “No,” she said, “leave ‘em be. There’s cream indoors, they’ll be so much nicer.”

“They’re sweet enough,” said Ross, but he liked her reprimand so well – the fact of it, the way she had not hesitated – that he obeyed her. “There’s enough to share,” he suggested, but Demelza shook her head.

“I’ve had plenty,” she said. It was not altogether true. She had saved most of them for Ross, wanting more than ever to please him. Doubts had plagued her ever since Prudie had reminded her of the likely reactions that other people would have on hearing that Ross was to marry his kitchen maid. The doubts had become physical, and she still felt like there was a stone in her stomach, weighing her down. She had eaten little during the day, and for supper she had ignored Ross’s spoken request that she eat her meals with him now, as they would when they were married. She had been afraid he would see how little she ate, when normally she had a great appetite. So she had eaten supper early, just a little bread and butter, and then she had slipped out of the house before Ross came back from the fields. Finding the wild strawberries had been chance, but a happy one.

“Then at least join me,” he said, and there was enough of an order in his voice that Demelza could not give any excuse to him. Not that she _wanted_ to be parted from him, not when he offered his company so willingly, and when he spoke plainly his desire to spend his evening hours, whether at leisure or work, in her company.

So Demelza sat in the parlour with Ross, he eating his strawberries while writing a letter and she working her way through her pile of mending. They were quiet, but it was pleasant, and being with Ross eased the knot of anxiety that had occupied Demelza’s stomach for the greater part of the day. She kept her eyes down on her work, but she was intensely aware of him. Every movement he made, every slight sound, were signs that he was with her and that he wanted her with him. She hoarded it all up, to use against the doubts when they crept back in, as they surely would.

In bed it was a different matter. There she could be more sure of herself and of her place in his life. He reached for her there, making a deliberate choice to reach out for her, to touch her and to take her. Demelza thought that she was pleasing him well enough, for him to keep wanting her. In his bed it no longer seemed to matter that she was his maid; she was Demelza, and he was Ross. That was all. They kissed and touched and spoke a little, and never once had he treated her as a servant, not in his bed. 

But out of bed…out of bed, Demelza felt caught between being his servant and being something else. Not quite his betrothed, for they spent too much time together for that to fit the situation, and not his equal, but something else. Something more than before. He sought her out and he expected her to eat with him, rather than in the kitchen with Jud and Prudie, as a servant should. He kissed her sometimes, or put a hand to her waist. But her days were, so far, much the same as before. She rose early and worked the day away, and though her evenings were spent with Ross, that was not so terribly different to before. Of late she had often stayed in the parlour with him, talking or working or studying. Were it not that the banns had been read once already, Demelza might easily believe that her life had not changed and would not change, despite her place in Ross’s bed.

She would have been contented with that. It was Ross who had made the further change, Ross who had said she should marry him. In three weeks she would be his wife. She would wear a wedding ring and bear his name. But three weeks was time enough for gossip to spread around the district, to Sawle and Grambler and Trenwith. And then what would Ross do, faced with the opposition that surely would come?

“What’s the matter?” Ross asked her, and Demelza stabbed her finger with her needle and hissed. Blood welled up from the tiny spot, and she stuck the finger into her mouth to stop the blood going over the sheet she was hemming.

Ross smiled, safe in the knowledge that she was too busy to notice it. After a moment Demelza stopped sucking at her finger and looked at him. The light was fading outside, and Ross hadn’t bothered to move to light all the candles yet. Her face was half in shadow, her eyes bright but her mouth hidden. The sunset painted her hair, turning it from its usual red into the colour of worked copper. 

“You’re quiet,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “Too quiet. Come, out with it. Is something amiss?”

“No, sir – Ross,” she said, correcting herself before he could even lift an eyebrow. “There’s nothing.”

Ross looked at her for a long moment, and then shook his head. Quietness in Demelza was unnatural. If she’d said that she didn’t want to interrupt his letter-writing, he might have believed it – or at least accepted it. But something was troubling her, and when she went quiet it often meant some outbreak of mischief. Not that she ever _meant_ it, he admitted to himself. She hadn’t _meant_ to climb a tree they’d been felling, to loose a rope, just at the moment that the tree decided it would fall down without further assistance. She’d emerged from the branches no worse for wear, laughing at the shock of it, but with little awareness of how close she had come to being killed. She hadn’t intended to get herself into trouble. Nor when she had tried to move all the kitchen furniture to do a deep clean of the kitchen, and ended up trapped underneath a dresser until Jud got home to free her. She simply took it into her head to do a thing, with no conception of the dangers of it.

But, Ross reminded himself, she had no sense of self-preservation. And a quiet Demelza had taught him that there might be some outbreak soon. Her moods, as Prudie called them, came upon Demelza and then there was no knowing what she might try to tackle next. Perhaps this time she would decide to up-end the parlour to deep clean it – well, she could do as she wished, but if she tried to lug the heavy table and chairs out of here, she might do herself an injury. He wouldn’t have it.

“Come here,” he said, pushing his chair back from the table. He had finished writing his letter – to Francis, suggesting they might meet at Grambler on Saturday afternoon – and the inkwell was capped and the ink on the letter was dry. Demelza set aside her mending with every appearance of meekness. Ross knew better. There wasn’t a meek bone in her body. But she came to him, and let him pull her onto his knee. After a moment she sighed, as if releasing some tension, and she rested her head on his shoulder. Ross pressed a kiss to her curls and then inhaled, breathing in her scent. Rosemary. She’d been gardening, perhaps. Or rolling in it. He wouldn’t put it past her, wild thing that she still was at heart.

He put a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head so he could kiss her. He was tired, physically tired from a hard day’s work, and even Demelza on his knee could scarcely elicit more than a flicker of desire from him, but kissing her like this was hardly energetic and need not lead anywhere. 

“You taste of strawberries,” Demelza murmured into his mouth. She sounded pleased by the discovery. Ross kissed her again, tongues meeting, breath mingling. She put her arms around his neck, a hand at his nape, fingers scratching against his scalp. That was a new trick, he thought, but he found he liked it, so he didn’t discourage her. This was pleasant, being with her like this. The evening was warm, the windows still open and a breeze drifting through. Demelza was no weight at all in his arms, but he liked her here.

How had this become so natural? he wondered. Less than a week and this had become…well, not an accepted and ordinary part of his life, it was too new for that, and too impossible to comprehend. And yet kissing her, holding her like this, was rapidly becoming as necessary to his day as anything else that kept him moving, kept him living. He ate his meals and worked in the fields or the mine and kissed Demelza. He scoffed at himself for such whimsy. Demelza was here, and a pleasant distraction, but he had done without this physical intimacy for years. A handful of days could not make him need something that he knew he could well live without.

Impatient with himself, he drew back from Demelza, far enough to look her in the eye.

“I distrust you when you’re quiet,” he told her. “Are you perhaps planning to single-handedly rearrange all the furniture? Or climb any unsafe trees?”

Demelza ducked her head, a trifle embarrassed by the reminders.

“No, I’m not,” she said. The coming days would be filled with work, as usual, and she and Prudie would begin on her new frock tomorrow, but she had no intention of doing anything like those things that had caused her trouble in the past.

“Then what is it?” Ross demanded. He would not let it lie, she saw, and her mouth twisted into a scowl for the briefest of moments. Then she leaned against him and tucked her head against his shoulder again, so she didn’t have to look at him when she spoke.

“I went over to Sawle today,” she said.

“So I gathered,” said Ross dryly, “by the fresh fish you cooked me for supper.” Demelza thought that she would like to poke her finger into his stomach in retribution, but she refrained from taking such a liberty.

“I got it from Aunt Mary Rodgers,” she said. “An’ Pally Rodgers was there, too.” She hesitated. He’ll laugh, she thought, and think I’m a silly child. Ross said nothing to spur her into speech, but she knew he was waiting. “They called me ‘miss’,” she admitted finally, and risked a glance at him. Ross looked unusually solemn, but she knew that look. He was trying not to laugh. “I never been called ‘miss’,” she said, “not in my whole life.”

“And this was enough to make you so quiet?” Ross asked, not entirely sure that he believed her. Demelza shrugged one shoulder. Her lips were pressed in a thin line, her brows drawn together in a slight frown. No, he thought, there was something else too, but she didn’t want to say. Well, he wouldn’t press her. “Demelza,” he said, “look at me.” He waited until she obeyed, and then continued. “The banns were read yesterday. The news will have begun going around Sawle and Grambler. Two weeks from today we be married. You’ll have to get used to being called ‘miss’ – at least for now.” Soon enough it would be ‘ma’am’ or ‘mistress’, and Ross would give a pretty penny to be present the first time somebody called her that. 

“Yes, Ross,” Demelza murmured. “I see that. But ‘tis strange, from folks as always just used my name.” She made a funny grimace of distaste, and wriggled a little. It was extremely distracting, and roused the desire that Ross had thought himself too fatigued to feel this evening. 

“Sit _still_ ,” he said sharply – more sharply than he intended, but it produced the desired effect. Demelza stilled at once, and looked at him with wide eyes. But then a shy smile spread across her face, and she looked at him demurely, from beneath her eyelashes.

“Was I distracting you?” she asked. She could feel the effect she had on him, and it filled her with the kind of confidence that made her feel bold.

“You know damn well that you were,” Ross said. But he hadn’t meant to be sharp, she saw. He hadn’t intended a fierce reprimand. His eyes were dark and hooded, his hand splayed across her back. Was it late enough to retire to bed? Demelza wondered. The sun had not quite set yet. Prudie was still in the kitchen, and Jud outside seeing to the stock. Perhaps it was too early yet. She lifted a hand to stroke her thumb across his cheekbone, unable to resist touching him. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and his chin was more bristled than usual. 

“Should I stop?” she asked, barely above a whisper. Ross kissed her again then, licking into her mouth, scratching at her cheeks with his stubbled jaw. Demelza felt as if he was trying to take her, to possess her in some impossible way, as if by kissing her he could claim her. It was a ridiculous notion, she thought, for she already belonged to him, by his choices and by her own.

They parted for breath, and Ross rested his forehead against hers.

“What have I unleashed,” he muttered, but it seemed not to be addressed to her, so Demelza gave no answer. He took a deep breath. His eyes were closed, but this close to him, Demelza could not see him well enough to even begin to guess at what he was thinking, even if his eyes were to open. Then Ross lifted his head and looked at her and gave her a little shake. “You _have_ distracted me. We were talking about your dislike of being called ‘miss’. In all seriousness, Demelza – are you listening?”

“Yes, Ross,” she said obediently.

“You will be my wife,” he said, and felt an unanticipated thrill of pleasure at saying so. “You will be mistress of Nampara, and people will respect that, and you.” Demelza was frowning again, but she looked as though she was thinking it over, thoughtful rather than displeased. She would approach it as she approached all new ideas, he knew. She would turn it over in her mind until she was satisfied, and then she would accept it into her view of the world. Ross resolved not to meddle with the process. Demelza was clever enough to come to her own conclusions. And, short of dissolving the engagement, there was nothing she could do to change things. She would be Mistress Poldark, and the people who had called her Demelza before, when she was a servant, would no longer do so. 

“They’ll talk,” Demelza said at last. “If Aunt Mary Rodgers knows, it’ll be all ‘round Sawle by now, an’ out to Grambler village and Mellin Cottages.”

“So let them talk,” said Ross, dismissing her concerns. “They’ve talked plenty about the pair of us before.” He knew everyone in Sawle and Grambler villages, and any who had gossiped before would gossip again. Those who knew Ross better would not hold with rumours, and they would lead the others in showing Demelza the respect that would be due to her.

“Yes, that’s true,” she agreed. “Well. I’ll get used to it, by and by.”

“Good.” Ross kissed the end of her nose and laughed at the way she looked at him. “Now come to bed, and finish what you started.”

If there was gossip spreading through the district after that, Ross heard none of it for several days. On Tuesday he worked on the farm, with Jud and Jack Cobbledick and the Martin children. None of them, not even Jud, made any reference to the first reading of the banns. Indeed they were all too busy, for June was settling in and there was more than enough work to occupy them all. 

On Wednesday he rode to Truro to see Pascoe about some financial business, and to buy those things which could not be bought in Sawle. Demelza asked for sugar, and Ross had to visit the cobbler, for his boots were beyond mending and he finally had to admit defeat and order a new pair. There was the material to be got for Demelza’s new dress, as well, though he wasn’t sure Prudie had been wise to commission him to choose the fabric. Faced with more choice than he had time for, Ross chose a yellow a few shades paler than Demelza’s current dresses and hurried along to Pascoe’s bank.

Pascoe, as was his habit, invited Ross to dine and to stay the night, and Ross accepted. No gossip about his engagement had reached Truro, but Pascoe seemed honestly pleased for him when Ross shared the news.

“I’ll open a bottle of good brandy to celebrate,” Pascoe said. “And once you’re both settled, you must bring her to supper some time. My wife is always pleased to see you, you know.”

“That might be a little daunting for her,” said Ross wryly, thinking of Demelza’s wide eyes and faltering manners whenever anybody called at Nampara. “But I’ll pass along the invitation.” They would not accept until after the wedding, at any rate, and perhaps he could persuade her that Harris Pascoe and his family were not ogres out to catch her making the tiniest error. Well, in a few months, he thought. Give her time first. She would do well enough, given time.

Thursday was as hot as the days before it, and Ross rode back to Nampara in an unusually good mood. The sun was warm on his back, but a slight breeze blew in from the sea as he made his way along the coast. As he reached his own land, it gave him pleasure to see how well the crops were growing in the fields. It would be a good harvest this year. And, too, he found he looked forward to seeing Demelza. He had slept alone last night, in Pascoe’s guest bedroom. He was not so accustomed to her presence beside him that he could not sleep alone, but once or twice he had woken and, half-asleep, had listened for her but heard only silence.

He rode a circuitous route towards the house, passing by the oat field to see how the crop grew, and then by the meadow to see how Jud and Jack Cobbledick had progressed. They had finished mowing, and now they and the Martin children were forking the hay onto the cart, ready to take back to the barn to be stored for winter. Ross paused to watch them for a few moments, pleased to see the work that had been done, and then he rode on to Nampara house. 

Prudie was in the yard, half-heartedly beating at the parlour carpet, flung across the washing line. When he rode in, she began to work a little harder, swinging at the carpet with a little more effort. Ross dismounted and unsaddled Darkie before he said anything to Prudie. 

“I thought that carpet was cleaned only a few weeks ago,” he observed, going to the pump for water for Darkie.

“Yes, t’was,” Prudie said. “But she said as how she wanted to clean the parlour top to bottom, so here I be, doin’ work that don’ rightly need doin’ yet.”

Ross raised his eyebrows but said nothing more to Prudie. Garrick was sitting in the shade by the kitchen door, and barely did more than prick his ears up when Ross passed him. The kitchen was empty, though something was cooking in the oven, filling the room with mouth-watering scents. Something for dinner, Ross hoped. Demelza had become a good cook, these last few months. Not that she’d ever been _bad_ , but she had learned more and increased her skill beyond the meagre levels she had needed when she had been cook and drudge for her father and brothers.

Demelza herself was in the parlour. Used to Ross’s occasional absences, she had not fretted at the lack of him yesterday afternoon or evening. She had, it was true, been a little tentative about sleeping in his bed without him, but Prudie had stripped her bed already, the sheets washed and ironed and folded away for future use. So there had been no choice; Demelza had slept in Ross’s bed. The room was strange without him, but the bed linen smelled of him, and she slept well enough.

She woke in the morning to cramps, following in the wake of the bleeding that had begun the day before. Demelza was not given to cramping with her monthly bleeding, but it happened occasionally and, when it did, she tended to take Prudie’s advice and do some chore that required hard physical effort. Today, with Ross away, she decided to tackle the parlour. She skipped breakfast and did her morning’s chores with more haste than care, and then she set Prudie to cleaning the parlour carpet. It would be easier, Demelza reckoned, to work without Prudie’s disapproval hovering in the room like a black cloud. 

And so it proved. Demelza had managed to move even the heaviest furniture to one side of the room so she could scrub the floor on other side. Then she had moved everything back and scrubbed the other half of the floor. She had dusted every surface in the room. She had raked the fireplace free of ashes. Now she was polishing the wooden seats that bracketed the fireplace, bringing them up to a good shine. Her hair was sticking to the back of her neck, and beneath her dress and shift, her undergarments were soaked with sweat. But the work was wholesome and necessary, and her cramps had eased entirely by the time Ross appeared in the parlour.

“You appear to have turned this room upside down,” he observed. Demelza jumped and whirled around. She hadn’t heard his step in the hall – but she’d been humming, and caught up in her own thoughts, and Ross could be quiet as a cat, if he chose. He stood with his hands on the doorposts, leaning into the parlour with a quizzical expression on his face. “What in God’s name possessed you?”

Demelza pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. 

“Oh, sir,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come back. D’you need for me to unsaddle Darkie?”

“No, I’ve done that,” Ross said, glancing her over. Demelza rubbed at her cheek, where she was sure she’d managed to smudge ash. Her skirt was soaked to the knee from scrubbing the floor. She felt hot and sticky and she experienced a momentary fear that Ross would not want her if she looked as bad as she thought she did. She’d remind him now of the common servant that she was. No Mistress of Nampara, not even once she had a ring on her finger. “Well,” Ross went on, “why did you feel the need to attack the parlour?”

“I thought, since you was out – _were_ out,” Demelza corrected herself quickly, “that I might as well do a good scrub in here. An’ I’d an ache, so I wanted to do something to help it.”

“An ache?” His eyes were sharp now. He pushed himself off the doorway and into the room, coming across to her. He lifted a hand as if he wanted to touch her, but then it fell back by his side. “Where? Are you ill?”

“No.” Demelza blushed, and rubbed at her cheek again. “S’just my time, s’all.” She was hesitant to explain further, though Ross knew – surely he must know what women went through. Prudie was too old for it now, but Demelza had been living here for long enough, and it was a small household; there were few enough secrets. 

“Your – oh, I see.” He pressed her no further on the matter, to her relief. Instead he surveyed the room once more with a faint frown of disapproval. “I hope you weren’t planning on moving any of the heavier furniture,” he said. Demelza was glad he had not come home an hour earlier, when she’d been doing precisely that, but she didn’t lie in her answer.

“Oh no,” she said. “’tis nearly done.” Then, anxious to change the subject, she added: “I wasn’t sure when you’d be back – but there’s a pasty ready for your dinner, if you’re going down mine.”

“No, the fence on the paddock needs mending,” Ross said. “I’ll change and go straight out.” 

There was something different about his bedroom when he reached it. Ross could not at first work out what it was. He took off his good waistcoat and trousers and pulled on those that he used for labouring, and then looked carefully around the room. The shirt that he had given Demelza to use as a nightgown was folded neatly on top of the pillow that he had already begun to think of as hers, but that was not new. Her other dress was on a chair, and this too was neatly folded. That _was_ a change; she had not kept any clothing in here before. He must remind her to bring anything else of hers into his room, he thought. Less than two weeks. Then this would be _their_ room. They would share it.

But that wasn’t what had caught his attention. The difference, he realised, was a jug of flowers on the windowsill. Demelza had spread her love of flowers into his bedroom, a room that had previously been his domain alone. She was claiming some bit of space here, claiming a right to be here. It pleased him as much as it disarmed him. Had it only been a week ago that he’d woken up in this room to find her creeping out without a backwards glance? He had been full of regret and confusion then. He was hardly less so now, though he had shaken himself free of the worst of it.

Well, Demelza was beginning to claim this as her bedroom as well as his, and in the circumstances that was no bad thing. He must remind her, later, to fetch the rest of her things. He would need to clear some drawers for her, and make some space in the closet, but that could happen later, by candlelight. His farm tasks needed daylight, and Ross must not waste more of it.

Demelza took Ross’s dinner out to him when he did not appear in the house at the appointed hour and, somewhat hopeful, took her own out as well. He had moved on from the paddock to the eastern-most field, and she found him weeding the peas there. Another six weeks or so and the crop would be ready for harvesting, but not if the weeds choked them first.

“I’d have come to help,” Demelza said, furrowing her brow as she saw how much of the field needed attention. “I can come back after I’ve tended the calves.” Jim, Jud and the Martin children had plenty to do getting the hay in without Ross calling one of them away to help him, but few of her afternoon chores were urgent, and Prudie could be coaxed into doing those that were. She would much rather work out in the sunshine beside Ross than be in the house, and the weeding was important.

“I can manage,” Ross said, straightening up and winding his way through the peas towards her. His waistcoat was unfastened and his skin glistened with sweat. Demelza appreciated the sight, more so now that she felt free to look a little more openly than before, when she had known herself beneath his notice and thus kept her eyes away from him. 

“Aye, sir, but happen it’d go quicker with two,” she said as he joined her at the gate. She lifted her basket. “Pasties and buttermilk,” she said. “An’ a seed cake, for if you’d like.”

“I would indeed,” said Ross, but his smile seemed a little constrained. Demelza bit her lip and frowned at him, but he said nothing else for the moment, merely took his dinner from her and settled down in the meagre shade provided by the wall. Demelza sat too, and listened to the crows calling. A blackbird was singing nearby too, much more tuneful than the crows.

“It would go quicker,” Ross said at last, “and it would be a help, but I think I’ll do it alone, nevertheless.” This had not been the way he meant to broach the subject with Demelza, but circumstances had made it so. She was looking at him now, her confusion plain to see. Her eyebrows were drawn together and her lips were pursed a little. He could see her unspoken questions. Ross brushed pastry crumbs from his mouth. “When we’re married,” he said, “it would be better if you didn’t do so much work in the fields.”

That had come out badly, and he could see at once that she did not understand.

“But why, sir?” she asked him, an odd note in her voice. “Jack an’ the children are good, but there’s always too much to do in summer, an’ I can work as hard as they.”

“ _Ross_ ,” he corrected her, but didn’t wait for her to say his name. “I’m not doubting your ability, Demelza. I merely don’t wish my wife to be worked to death as a field hand. No more than Francis would wish Elizabeth to work in the fields.” He paused to assess her, but her eyes were lowered and her mouth gave nothing away. “I’m not asking you to take up embroidery,” he said dryly, trying to amuse her. “But you’ll be mistress here, not a maid. It won’t do for you to work so much in the fields.”

Demelza nodded slowly, and thought: Elizabeth; always I shall be compared to Elizabeth, but I’ll never match up; I don’t know how. 

“I see it wouldn’t do,” she said quietly. 

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she said, with a little more emphasis. “I do, sir. Ross.” But still she didn’t look up at him. She had been engaged as a kitchen maid, but the days when she had only worked in the kitchen were long past. She was used to field work, used to the scythe and the hoe. She had never ploughed a field, never driven the oxen, but she’d done enough. She’d done her share. She could not imagine not doing it. But he said it wasn’t a question of how hard she worked, that it was merely about what would be proper for his wife. Mistress of Nampara. Judas God, she thought, I never dreamed of such a thing, and now it’s coming and I can’t show him how I feel. No, for she would not risk his scorn if she admitted that she didn’t think she could ever be such a thing, not truly. He might marry her, make her his wife, but how could she ever measure up to all the fine ladies that he might have if he chose? She’d seen Elizabeth, she’d seen his cousin Verity. And there were other ladies, too. She would never be one of them. Demelza hadn’t the slightest idea how to be one of them. She was fit for weeding peas and mowing hay, not for – well, not for whatever a gentlewoman was fit for. She couldn’t even read properly.

“Be that why you hired the Martin children?” she asked suddenly. “So they’ll make up the work?”

“One of the reasons,” Ross said. “I know they’ll all go to the mine eventually, but it will be a help to Zacky and Mrs Martin, having the extra wages now.” He finished his pasty and wiped his hands on the grass, then leaned back against the wall and stretched his legs out so his feet were in the sun. Demelza admired him for a moment, his lean lines and the curl of his hair, but her nagging sense of inadequacy would not allow the admiration to take uppermost hold of her mind. 

“You should have more leisure,” Ross said at last. “You work too hard. It will mean you’ll have more time for your garden, anyway.” Demelza could not be anything but pleased at that idea, and she managed to smile at him.

“That’s true,” she said. “I’ll be glad of that.” 

“And don’t imagine for a moment that I’ll allow you to inflict Prudie’s cooking on me again,” he added, with a stern sort of look that made her laugh, for she knew he was teasing her. “I’m certain she made me ill more than once,” Ross went on. “I’m sure you’d never allow such a thing to happen.”

“She’s a mite careless with her timings,” was all Demelza would admit to on the subject of Prudie’s failings. There were more than a few, but for all that, Demelza knew Prudie cared for her, in her own rough and ready way. And Prudie had taught her as much as she knew; Demelza owed her much, she could admit that, however much she might have, occasionally, wished Prudie away. Prudie was lazy and careless, but Demelza would not admit to it out loud. It would be a sort of disloyalty, and though she owed that first and foremost to Ross, Demelza did not think a refusal to speak ill of Prudie would upset Ross greatly. 

“If – if I do aught wrong,” Demelza began impulsively, “you’ll tell me, Ross? I will try, to be what I ought to be, but I don’t know much, I’m not educated –,”

“No more am I,” he cut in, though he knew that was not what she meant. It worried her, though, he could see that. “Be as you are,” he said, after a pause to think over what he should say. “You’re far from stupid, Demelza. You’ll do well enough.”

“I don’t want to let you down,” she said, her voice so low that he could scarcely hear her over the shrieking of the crows nearby. 

Ross felt impatient, though he could hardly tell why. It was not entirely directed at Demelza, nor entirely directed towards the mores and expectations of the society in which they lived, and yet both were subject to his impatience. He must marry Demelza, for the sake of being able to live with himself. She would provide companionship and care, and she had already amply shown that she would satisfy the baser parts of his nature. Well, then, let them be married, and let anyone who looked down on her be hanged. He would not begin by being ashamed of her, and he was impatient that she seemed to think he must be so.

“Then don’t say such foolish things,” he said, quite sharply. Demelza did not flinch at the sting of his words, but she dropped her gaze again, chastened. Ross regretted his tone at once, but had no idea how to explain to her the complicated, tangled mess of reasons and arguments that had gone through his mind when he had taken the decision to marry her. Not once had it occurred to him that he might ever be ashamed of her, or that she might ‘let him down’ in any way. He did not want her to think that. It felt a poor reflection of himself, if she thought he was or would be ashamed of her.

“Of course I’ll help, if you require it,” he said, trying to let go of his irritation. “As for doing wrong – refrain from taking it into your head to perform one of your mad capers and I’ll be pleased enough, I assure you.”

“Yes, sir – yes, Ross, I mean,” Demelza murmured. She felt a little better for admitting some of her fears, but she knew Ross didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. He was born to his position, and wore the mantle of it easily, for all he railed against his own class. He was one of them, for all that. And she – she was a miner’s brat, spawned and raised in poverty and filth, and it was only because of him that she had ever lifted her head and found anything more for herself. 

She would try, then. She would do her best. And he would help her, despite the sharpness to him now. He had already helped her in many ways, after all – teaching her to read and write, talking freely with her in the evenings about the mine, about the workers, about things he had seen or read about. She had faith in him, a faith that was deeper rooted than her anxieties. She would try, for him, to be what he expected her to be once she was his wife.

His wife. A week had gone since he had suggested it, since he had come after her and taken her home as his intended wife, and still she was not used to it. Would she ever be? No, she thought as she took out the seedcake she had brought for him, she never would be. She never could be used to it.

“I’ll be getting back now,” she said, refusing his offer of a share of the cake. “Calves won’t wait forever, an’ I did ought to start on the cheeses, now we’ve rennet.”

“And I must get back to work,” said Ross, rising to his feet and reaching a hand out to help her up. “The peas won’t weed themselves, more’s the pity.”

“I _could_ help,” Demelza began, but she subsided when he gave her a look.

“I don’t want to tell you twice,” he said. “We’re not in such dire straits that we can’t manage without. I’m not telling you not to work,” he added, when she looked unconvinced. “But not in the fields.” Not unless they ended up with no choice, he thought to himself. If the mine failed, if he ended up penniless, _then_ he might relent. But even then he would fight against it. His mother had never worked in the fields, though she’d done plenty else, and nor would his wife. Not if he could help it. 

“Yes, sir,” Demelza said, and Ross hadn’t the heart to remind her to use his name, not when she looked as she did now – as if she didn’t truly understand, but would do as he said regardless. It was strange for her, he reminded himself – stranger for her than for him, no doubt. Time would help them both.

Demelza returned to the house in a thoughtful mood. She was trying to fit this new facet of her life into her mind, to try to envisage not working in the fields but having time to tend her garden or to play with Garrick, or any thing that she might choose to do. Leisure, Ross had said. But leisure was a foreign concept to Demelza, who had worked from the moment she left her cradle. Oh, she had on rare occasions shirked her chores, and often she rose early and went tramping around the countryside looking for flowers, but that was hardly the same thing, and Demelza knew it.

She was anxious to please Ross, though – always, _always_ anxious to please him – and so she would try to learn, for him. She would tend her garden and perhaps try to improve her sewing, and there were always a dozen tasks about the house and the farmyard that she put off when she was needed in the fields. Her days would hardly be more empty.

Prudie noticed her mood but said nothing about it. Jud noticed, when he came slouching in from stacking hay, his face red from the sun and his shirt covered in straw dust. He was less circumspect, still deeply unhappy at the news of Demelza’s imminent rise in stature. He parked himself at the kitchen table, demanded a cup of cider, and watched Demelza with a suspicious look. Demelza ignored him, more because she was busy with her own thoughts than from any deliberate choice, but at length he spoke.

“Look at ‘er, miss high an’ mighty,” he groused. “Too good to talk to the likes of we anymore. Airs an’ graces already though she’s no better ‘an she ought t’be.”

Demelza was shelling early peas beside the open back door, but she raised her head and gave him a sour look. “If you’ve something worth listenin’ to, I’ll listen,” she said, trying not to snap. “So far you’ve done naught but grumble an’ moan since you got in.”

“Hark at her!” Jud said to Prudie. “Hark at the mouth on ‘er, that measly little guttersnipe what never did know ‘er place.” Prudie sniffed and kept chopping onions. Demelza knew better than to count on her support. At times Prudie seemed to be coming around to the idea of the forthcoming marriage, and at times she showed her resentment clearly. It was rare that she went against Jud in anything, especially when it concerned Demelza.

So, lacking certain support, Demelza trod carefully. She had no wish to anger Jud, no wish to make him more unfriendly than usual, but she could not sit idly while he hurled insults at her. 

“No wonder, livin’ with you,” she said. “You know that’s the last of the cider, but do ee care if Mister Ross might have wanted it?” Not that Ross often drank cider – he preferred the brandy he bought from the local purveyor of duty-free merchandise, Mr Trencom, who ran ships regularly over to France – but there was the principle of the thing. 

“Mister Ross don’t care,” said Jud, glowering at her. “And ‘e don’t care about you, so don’t ee be thinkin’ he does. He don’t, an’ ‘e’ll drop you soon as look at you, if Mistress Elizabeth so much as snaps ‘er fingers for ‘im.”

That hit too close, but Demelza tried not to give Jud the satisfaction of seeing how his words hurt. She finished shelling the peas and went to check on the meat that she’d set to cook slowly in the stove. Supper soon. Ross would be in soon enough, starved as a young dog after a day’s work on the farm, though where he put his food she didn’t know. Thin as a pole. Lean and long. She remembered the feel of those legs against hers, of his lean torso pressing her down into the mattress. She must hold those memories close, she told herself. They were true. There was truth in them. Ross might still love _her_ , but Demelza was the one in his bed, Demelza the one with whom his name was linked in the banns. Once read. Twice, this Sunday. Then only another eight days. And if Jud was right – well, she wouldn’t let herself think that he might be. Elizabeth was married. Ross would be married. She, Demelza, would be Ross’s wife. He would belong to her then, in some small way, and Elizabeth’s claim would be lesser, surely? 

Surely it would be so. What did Jud know, anyway? she demanded of herself, slamming the stove door shut as a release for her anger. 

“See! Not even a civil tongue in ‘er head to answer me,” Jud said, triumphantly, as if she had proved something for him. “No more’n a common trull, makin’ free wi’ things what didn’t ought to be free.”

“Jud Paynter, you hush your mouth,” Prudie said at once, reaching out to deal Jud a clout across the head with her fist. Demelza stood beside the stove, but she felt cold. “It ain’ none of your business, what Mister Ross do in ‘is own home,” Prudie went on, “and if he wants t’marry the girl, there’s nowt standin’ in his way, ‘specially not a gin-sozzled lump like you.” 

“But –,”

“No more!” Prudie ordered him, this time rapping his knuckles. “Way I sees it, she’d never ‘ad such notions if we hadn’t brung her up right, see?” Demelza glanced at Prudie, startled by the defence. But it was what she herself had suggested to Prudie, earlier in the week. She had said that if Ross looked at her now, it was only because Prudie had pulled her out of the dirt and taught her that she might be better. If Prudie was beginning to believe that, then perhaps Jud might also. Hope strengthened her, and she went to stand behind Prudie and looked earnestly at Jud.

“It’s the truth,” she said. “If he be lookin’ at me now, it’s all on account of how you two brought me up and showed me I could be better.”

Jud said nothing to that. It seemed to have startled him, the idea that he might be in some way to blame for the change in Demelza’s status. He lifted the cup of cider to his mouth and drained it, then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Prudie rolled her eyes, and gestured Demelza back to her work.

“Let ‘im stew over that for a time,” Prudie said, in a loud whisper designed to be heard by Jud. “Fetch some water in an’ us’ll finish up supper in no time.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Francis can’t meet me tomorrow,” Ross said, as much to himself as to Demelza, who was sitting at the parlour window sewing her new dress. It was late Friday afternoon, and the sun painted her skin golden and made her hair glow like fire. It made her beautiful, the warm light playing over the graceful arch of her neck as she bowed her head over the careful stitches she was making in the red cloth that Prudie had found for her. Ross had not yet given her the material he had bought in Truro, the fine yellow fabric for a best dress for his wife-to-be. He had some idea of giving it to her as a wedding present, though part of him shied away from the idea. 

She lifted her head and looked at him, pushing her hair from her eyes. 

“Was he going to?” she asked. “Is he well?”

“I asked him to meet me,” Ross said, admiring her for a moment longer. He felt, fleetingly, the stirring of desire. But he banished it easily enough. She was still incommoded; he didn’t mind, but she seemed to, and he had no reason to force the issue. He was twenty-seven, not seventeen, and he had lived an abstinent life for long enough to know that he did not _need_ her, much as he might want her. 

“I wanted to tell him the news in person,” he added. Demelza frowned then, just for a moment, and then she looked back down at her work. Ross waited to see if she would speak, but Demelza held her own counsel. “It wouldn’t be fair to let them hear it in church before I tell them,” he said, watching her carefully. “And I thought to invite Verity to the wedding.”

“Oh,” said Demelza, a small sound that was barely more than a breath. She applied herself to her sewing, but from the corner of her eye she could see him watching her. She was silent, carefully sewing the gathered material at the waist of the skirt. It would be a lovely full skirt, for there had been plenty of material, and Prudie had even managed to scrounge up a length of lighter red cloth for a petticoat. Demelza had never had a petticoat before, just her shift and combinations – a stiffened laced bodice that buttoned on to drawers. She’d often left off the combinations, especially in the warmer months, but she thought she shouldn’t now. What Demelza Carne might do, she was beginning to realise, Demelza Poldark should not. This was a small step, but one she could take easily. 

She felt Ross’s gaze on her, but she did not look up at him. 

“So they’re to know, then,” she said at last. “It’s not to be secret from them.” But of course it could not be a secret. She knew it could not be, for the banns were read publicly in church. Already most of Sawle and Grambler must know. Demelza had known it would be common knowledge, but somehow despite knowing that, she had not fully comprehended the full idea of Ross _telling_ his family of his plan to marry her. But of course Francis and Elizabeth must be told, if they hadn’t already heard it from their servants. And Verity, too, and the older Poldarks. Demelza had seen Verity from afar, and Elizabeth of course she knew a little better. Francis was an unknown quantity, as was his father, Ross’s uncle. But he would not approve, neither of the Trenwith Poldark men would approve. She was sure of that.

“How could it?” Ross asked, sounding distracted. She risked a glance up and found him reading his letter once again. It had come from Trenwith that morning, but Ross had been out in the pea field again, and had not come in for dinner. Demelza had not imagined that the letter might contain anything that might concern her, so she had not fretted about its contents. She had been busy cheese-making most of the day, and she was not so good at that as to be able to spare a thought for anything else when she was so occupied.

“They’ll not understand,” she said, ducking her head again. “ _I_ don’t rightly understand.”

“Understand what?”

“How it came to happen,” Demelza tried to explain. “This. We.” 

Ross didn’t look up from his letter. “You’re not required to understand it,” he said, sounding absent and detached. “You’re required to accept it as a fact of life.” Demelza bit her lip for a moment and then took a deep breath and worked another few inches before Ross spoke again. “He suggests Monday instead,” he said. “I’ll write a note for him to take to Verity, inviting her to come for the wedding – unless you’ve any objections?”

“No, not if you’d like it,” Demelza said. There was something in her tone that made Ross look at her again, but her face betrayed nothing. Well, she would have to meet Verity sooner or later, and of all his family, she was the one of whom he was most certain. She had helped him through the darkest time of his life, and he would like her at his wedding. Verity would be pleased for him. She would welcome Demelza, as well, and he wanted them to become friends. So, lacking any voiced objection from Demelza, Ross would do as he planned, and send an invitation to Verity by way of Francis.

He folded the letter and went to stand near Demelza, staring out of the window. Her garden was blooming. Roses crept up the wall, around the window frame, scented blossoms blowing gently in the breeze and filling the air with fragrance. The roses had been planted by Ross’s mother. He had been amazed, on his return, to find that they had survived the Paynters’ neglect, but it was Demelza who had brought them back to glory. She had restored much of the garden, and added to it with seeds and cuttings that she found in the countryside. It was Demelza’s garden now, nobody else’s. Not even the lingering remnants of his mother’s memory were enough to keep it from being so.

Demelza seemed conscious of his closeness; her back was a little straighter, her head tilted as if she wanted to keep him within sight. Ross wondered what she was thinking and feeling. That she had been happy, this past week, seemed clear enough. That she had some anxieties about the impending change in her situation was hardly unexpected. Once more he wondered why she had agreed to it. True, she had made the first move that night, coming to his bedroom as she had. But she had tried to leave rather than remain as his servant after what had happened. 

He would not ask her. He could not, not when he did not love her. He cared for her, but it was not love, and so he could not ask her why.

“It’s a fine day,” he said, pushing aside the turmoil. “Come for a walk with me.”

She took a basket with her, in case they should happen to find more strawberries, or some flowers caught her eye, and she followed him readily across Nampara Combe and then up to the cliff that separated Nampara Cove from Hendrawna beach. Garrick came with them, sometimes rollicking around them both, sometimes running ahead when he caught an interesting scent. Demelza found primroses growing in the shelter of a rocky outcrop, and Ross waited while she pulled several out of the ground, keeping their roots as intact as possible.

“These ones are yellow,” she said to him, crouched down, her hands covered in soil. “I’ve only pink ones in the garden, I’d dearly like some yellow.” The primroses would keep well enough in her basket until they returned to Nampara, and then she would plant them and water them well. It was a happy find, and she beamed at Ross when she rose and wiped her hands together to brush away the worst of the soil.

“Scrabbling around in the dirt,” he said dryly. “Well, if it pleases you.” 

Garrick came loping up to them then, a stick in his mouth that he must have found somewhere near. He whined in his throat at Demelza, and then when she did not respond quickly enough, he turned around, tail wagging furiously, and went to Ross instead. Ross obliged the dog, taking the stick and flinging it away. Garrick went bounding after it. Demelza laughed, and then gave a little shriek when Garrick came back, stick retrieved, and lifted himself up onto his back paws, his front paws scrabbling at her frock. 

“No, get off,” she ordered him, though she took the stick before he obediently dropped back onto all fours. She threw it, but her arm was not as strong as Ross’s, and the stick did not fly as far.

“He’s too heavy to be doing that to you,” said Ross, taking the basket from her and offering her his arm – just as if she was a lady, Demelza marvelled. He slowed his stride to match hers and they strolled together, down the cliff path and onto Hendrawna beach. The tide was nearing its height and the sea intensely blue underneath the hot sun. The small strip of beach left above the lapping waves was empty except for themselves. In a few hours, when the sea retreated, there would be people wandering down here in search of any debris that might be left by the water. But for now they were alone, she and Ross and Garrick, wandering across the sand.

“Is the tide too high to bathe?” Demelza asked him presently. She was watching Garrick with envy as he frolicked in the shallow waves that surged and fell back, so far up the beach and no further. As long as he didn’t go too deep he would be safe; she did not worry for him. Garrick was a good swimmer.

“Yes,” said Ross, with a critical glance out at the sea. It looked calm, but there were hidden currents that could catch an unwary swimmer and pull him out to sea before he knew he was in trouble. Ross, who knew the tides and currents as well as he knew the lanes and roads of the land, would not be caught. Demelza, who was not a good swimmer and who did not know the currents so well, might be in more danger. “But I daresay you could get your feet wet,” he added, seeing the disappointment in her expression.

Demelza wasted no time; she slipped her arm from his and bent over to remove her shoes and stockings. Ross watched her without bothering to hide his amusement. Trying to balance on first one foot and then the other, she looked like a long-legged stork, or a foal finding its legs just after its birth. She wobbled, but balanced herself before he could do more than reach for her. 

“Are you comin’?” she asked him as she discarded shoes and stockings on a rock, well out of reach of even the most energetic of waves. Ross hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded and bent to remove his boots. Demelza was already playing in the water with Garrick by the time his boots and stockings were off, and Ross was content to watch them for a while, feeling like an outsider to her carefree joy. She had hitched up her skirt somehow. It was knotted out of the way, exposing her lower legs and the ends of her drawers. There was something about her now, something young and innocent and child-like, that made her both fascinating and oddly repellent, as if she was truly a child and he was the lecherous squire that her father had taken him for, when Demelza had first come to Nampara.

But Demelza was no longer a child, he reminded himself, and he was not a lecher. 

“He’ll have you over in a minute,” he said to Demelza, joining her. The sea was deliciously cool around his feet and ankles. Garrick barked and circled around him, sending water spraying up. Ross got a face full of salt water and Demelza laughed at him. Ross couldn’t bring himself to even feign distaste, not when she was so happy. Her smile was contagious, and Ross offered his arm again, quietly pleased when she took it and let him guide her along the beach. She even leaned on him a little occasionally, when the wet sand beneath their feet proved treacherous or a particularly energetic wave pushed against their ankles.

Garrick went off at a run, following some scent that only he could smell. They watched him go, and Demelza huffed a quiet laugh.

“He thinks he’s found some gulls,” she guessed.

“I doubt he’ll get one,” said Ross, and Demelza shrugged a slender shoulder. “I don’t believe you’ve ever told me how you acquired him,” Ross added.

“I don’t b’lieve you’ve ever asked,” Demelza returned, quick as lightning. Ross hid his smile. 

“No, perhaps not,” he said. “Tell me now.”

Demelza had forgotten, or forced herself to forget, many things of her life before Nampara, before Ross. Sometimes it felt as though that life had been a dream, and this was the only reality she had ever known. But there was Garrick, and her father’s recent visit had reminded her sharply of all the things she wished to cast aside into the darkness of her childhood. Garrick’s arrival in her life had been joyous, but even that had been tainted by poverty and hunger and beatings.

“He was half-killed,” she said now. “There was a pack of boys, all chasing him, no better’n animals themselves.” They’d had stones and sticks and poor Garrick had been cornered, bleeding. Then Demelza had bled too, in defence of him, and she’d snatched him up into her dirty rag of an apron and kept him safe. They’d flung stones at her, and one of them had tried to hit her across the head with his stick. “I got ‘im away and took ‘im home,” she said, choosing not to speak of her injuries. “Fed ‘im up, cleaned his cuts. He never did grow much afore we come here, though.”

Her accent and grammar shifted when she spoke of her past, Ross noted. She was a fine mimic, and her voice and words had changed so much since coming to Nampara, but now she had slipped back into older habits. He didn’t comment on it. 

“I cannot imagine your father welcomed him with open arms,” he said instead. “How did you feed him?”

“Oh, bits here an’ there,” said Demelza, shrugging again.

“Your own food as well, no doubt.” When Demelza gave him no answer, Ross hid a smile. Yes, he thought, that would be like her. Loyal to a fault. There had clearly been no lasting harm done to either of them, though he still wondered how Tom Carne had reacted to his daughter bringing home a mongrel puppy. Something in his stomach tightened unpleasantly. He _knew_ how Carne would have reacted. Ross had seen the evidence of his behaviour on Demelza’s back, the first day they had met. By God, he could not stand to see a child beaten so. 

After a while they turned back, when the air began to grow a little chilled and the cool sea began to be unpleasantly cold. The tide was going out, and already there were a few people come to search for useful debris. There would be more later, after the core change at Wheal Leisure. None of Ross’s particular friends were among the early scavengers, but he knew everyone hereabouts, and they all nodded to him, and the men touched their caps. They nodded to Demelza as well, and one or two of them muttered a ‘ma’am’ as they passed. Ross didn’t have to look at her to know how uncomfortable it made her, for she gripped his arm tightly, as if she needed physical support to accept the word and the nod.

But whatever she felt, she said nothing. They walked across the beach to where they had left stockings and shoes, but picked them up to carry for a while, to let the grass clean the sand from their feet. Demelza, encumbered by her shoes and her basket, could no longer walk on Ross’s arm. She stayed close beside him though, close enough that her arm brushed against his frequently.

At the beginning of the cliff path, where sand began to be littered with tall grasses and gorse, Demelza paused and turned back. Garrick was still playing on the sand and in the sea, chasing his own tail or the scent of a gull. She called for him, but he took no notice of her, not even when she called again, a little louder this time.

“Let him be,” Ross advised. “He’ll come when he’s ready.”

Demelza made a face. “I suppose so,” she said. Garrick often wandered for hours, sometimes even for a few days, and came back with a prize or with a new battle wound. As long as he always came back, Demelza didn’t mind. She watched him for a moment more, and then moved to join Ross. He had waited for her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she thought she could see a little of what he was feeling. Contented, for once – or so she judged. She knew what she was marrying in him. She knew his moods. But for now he was content, and that satisfied her. She would not deceive herself into thinking that she was responsible for it, but it had been pleasant this evening, walking with him, and she hoped that he had found happiness in it, as she had.

“I found the strawberries over there,” she said, when they had reached Nampara lands once more. “I hope there’s more – if there’s enough, I could make preserves.” She would have to buy more sugar for that, if she did find enough fruit. She had sugar in the house, but not enough to have any left over after a jam-making. Jud had a weakness for preserves, she remembered. Perhaps that was a way to win him over a little more. Ross had no real sweet tooth, no particular fancy for sweet things over savoury, but he seemed more pleased with her cooking as each week passed. She could make a tart for him, perhaps; her pastry was good. If the jam set well. If she found strawberries.

“I’m surprised you’ve not planted any in your garden yet,” said Ross, following where she led him, across Nampara Combe and around towards the apple orchard. “Though I suppose it’s more exposed than the orchard.”

“I’ve tried, but they won’t take,” Demelza agreed, with a wistful sigh. She would dearly like to have strawberries in her garden, but she had not had any luck with them. She contented herself with wild strawberries, at least for now. Perhaps by and by she would manage some in her garden. She would not be deterred by failure.

“When I was a boy, there were strawberries all around the orchard,” Ross said absently. He seemed not to realise what he had said, nor that Demelza inhaled quickly. It was rare that Ross shared anything of his past, and she was half-afraid to breathe, lest she should disturb his memories. “Then there was a storm, one summer, and a good number of them were uprooted and destroyed.” He smiled a thin, mirthless smile. “There was a wreck that night. My father and Jud and some others went down to Hendrawna beach and made off with what goods they could salvage.”

“I never saw a shipwreck,” Demelza offered, when Ross spoke no more and the silence began to drag. “There was one near Illugan, when I was little, but my mother had just died an’ we was all – _were_ all, I mean – we were all too busy, or too young. Except father, he went.” Her face was clouded when Ross glanced at her, as if it was not a happy memory. He wondered if she had anything but unhappy memories of her childhood.

“They’re not particularly pleasant things,” he said, offering it as a half-hearted assurance that she had not missed much. Demelza hummed, and then, as they reached the far end of the orchard, she made a triumphant sound.

“I thought there’d be more,” she said. All along the orchard wall, sheltered from the wind and the heat alike, were wild strawberry plants, heavy with red fruit. Demelza fell to her knees and set to work, pulling ripe fruit from the plants, and after a moment Ross joined her, her happiness too contagious. She took such pleasure in these small things, he mused. Wild strawberries, a new bloom in her garden, a discovery of a bird’s nest. It was not lack of intellect, no reflection at all on the scope of her mind. She found happiness in these things and was happier for it. Not like Ross, who was so often discontented with larger things and so brooded over them. He should try to learn a little of her outlook, he thought wryly. It could only do him good.

The afternoon had turned into evening by the time they had picked all that was ripe enough to pick, and Demelza’s fingers and mouth glistened with strawberry juice, for she’d not been able to resist eating one or two. And now, looking at her red lips, Ross couldn’t resist kissing her. He reached out and brought her close, pulling her down off her knees and onto her back, cushioned by grass and herbs. He leaned over her and kissed the juice from her lips, then licked into her mouth to taste strawberry there, too. Demelza lay quiescent, accepting the kiss but not making a move to draw him closer to her. He kissed her lazily, leisurely, until she lifted a hand to the base of his head and scratched lightly at his scalp.

“Ross,” she murmured. “Anyone might see, out here.”

“Nobody will see,” Ross said, but in truth she was right. Jack Cobbledick was still working, though not near the orchard, and it was always possible that Jud or Prudie might come in this direction for something. He kissed her once more, on her mouth and her jaw and her throat, and then he let her sit up. She was delightfully rumpled, her hair coming loose from its ties and a flush on her cheeks. 

“My feet are clean now,” she said. “Pass me my shoes and stockings?” Ross was closer to them than she was, and he obliged readily. But he didn’t give her the stockings; instead he carefully put them on her himself. It made Demelza shiver, though it was still hot. He put her stockings on as if he had done it many times before, and she spared half a thought to wonder what other women had enjoyed his attentions like this. Then, as Ross tied the garters above her knees, she banished the thought as unworthy. This was now, and whatever might have happened before her, before this moment, was unimportant.

“Ross,” she said softly. His hand danced down her leg. His eyes were dark. She felt a pang of that urge, that need that he had awoken in her. It coiled below her belly and sparked underneath her skin. Last night she had slept beside him and not felt it, only a deep comfort at being so close to him. He had not suggested love-making, either with word or action, and she had been glad of it, for yesterday she would have felt it too unseemly, though the worst of her bleeding was always in the first day. She still bled now, but only a little, and the way Ross touched her made Demelza want him to take her even though it would be a messy affair.

“Ross,” she said again, and saw from his expression that he understood her.

“Are you not –,” 

“Not overmuch,” she said, cutting him off before he could say it aloud. She didn’t mind him knowing such things, but she didn’t quite want him to speak of it. “Just a little, now.” He began to smile, a slow thing spreading across his mouth and into his eyes, and in one smooth movement he rose to his feet and held out his hands. Demelza took them and let him pull her upright.

They went with almost unseemly haste to the house. It was still light, and supper yet to be served, but Ross ignored Demelza’s mild protest and led her up the stairs on tiptoe to avoid being noticed by Prudie or Jud. He silenced her giggles by the simple expedient of kissing her whenever she could not contain herself, until finally they reached his bedroom and he closed the door behind them. He felt quite young, sneaking through his own house like a scolded child, but the lust in his veins was anything but childish. He pressed her up against the door and kissed her, and she put her arms around him and kissed him with equal fervour. 

After a while, despite Ross’s best efforts to distract her – and Demelza _was_ distracted, especially when he found a particular spot at her neck – she began to fumble at the buttons of his waistcoat. Ross hindered more than he helped, kissing her and trying to unfasten the hooks of her dress at the same time. His urgency was unquestionable, and it sent a thrill of pleasure through Demelza that had nothing to do with physicality, though his desire seemed to feed her own. It was a pleasure that came from feeling so wanted by him, by the man she had loved for almost as long as she had known him. Daylight still, she thought, and still we are here; we were last together Tuesday night and today is Friday and yet he wants me so much that he acts like this.

He growled into her mouth when he couldn’t manage the hooks, and Demelza laughed a little and pushed him away from her so she could do it herself. 

“Damn hooks,” Ross muttered, allowing her to take over. “Are you laughing at me, Demelza?” He finished unbuttoning his waistcoat and untied his stock. 

“Yes, Ross,” said Demelza, unrepentant.

“Stop it at once,” he instructed, and abandoned undressing in favour of kissing her again. Her dress was unfastened now, and he slid his hands below it and pushed it from her shoulders. Below that, between his hands and her skin, was her stays and shift. Ross lowered his head and pressed a line of gentle kisses from her collarbone to her jaw. Demelza made a delightful sound, not quite a moan but more than a sigh. She tilted her head to one side, giving him more access, and he kissed and sucked the fading mark that he had left on her neck the week before. Her skin tasted salty from her perspiration and Ross was struck with the impossible urge to lick it from her, every inch of her. Impossible, and he knew it. Instead he began to unlace her stays, and Demelza followed his lead, pushing his waistcoat off his shoulders until he had to stop working at her clothes to let the waistcoat fall to the floor.

“This’d go – oh!” Demelza stopped speaking when Ross lifted her up, hands at her waist. He spun her around and deposited her on the bed, grinning at the affronted look that she couldn’t quite hide. “I have legs,” she complained, but it was only a half-hearted complaint, so Ross didn’t take much notice.

“Very fine legs,” he agreed. “I’m quite fond of them.” He made quick work of her shoes and stockings, and kissed the smooth skin just below her left knee. There was a scar there, years old and faded with time, only a little more white than the rest of her legs. He didn’t know what had caused the scar, for she’d had it when she first came to Nampara, but it pleased him now to mark it out for attention.

“You’d get on better if you’d let me take off my drawers,” Demelza said, a trifle breathless. She wanted him undressed, too. She had seen him naked in daylight before – most mornings, in fact, since she had begun to sleep in his bed – but their lovemaking so far had been done in candlelight, and she wanted to _see_ him now. To see him properly, the scattering of hair on his chest, the muscled lines of his stomach and legs, and his face when they joined together. Ross evidently agreed with her, for he rose again and pulled his shirt over his head. Demelza sat up and unbuttoned her stays from her drawers. The stays were discarded beside the bed, but she hesitated for a moment when she went to untie the string of her drawers.

“We needn’t, if you don’t want to,” Ross said. He spoke quietly and evenly, and she thought it was kind of him to say it. But she wanted to, it was only that she was a little embarrassed. 

“I want to,” she said, looking up at him. He was bare now, divested of trousers and drawers, and she could see all of him. His cock was hard, his arousal clear. For me, she thought. And she could feel dampness between her thighs that had nothing to do with her monthly. There was a glint in his eyes as he looked at her, and it made her breath catch in her throat. She wanted him to touch her more than she wanted to keep him from knowing the more intimate details of the trials of womanhood. She licked her lips, nervous in a way she had not felt since that first night. “Fetch a towel, for the sheets,” she suggested, and when Ross’s back was turned to her she quickly pushed off her drawers and the cloth she used to soak up her bleeding. She hid _that_ beneath the drawers, dropping it all beside the bed before Ross turned back, towel in hand. 

The look on his face was unmistakable, and Demelza’s last nerves fled. She took the towel he held out to her and laid it carefully on the sheets, and then she lay down and held her arms out to him, a silent plea. Ross joined her at once, kneeling over her, a knee each side of her hips and a hand supporting himself when he reached down to kiss her. She could kiss Ross forever, Demelza thought dreamily as the kiss turned from gentle to something hard, something more purposeful. His tongue sought and gained entrance to her mouth, hot and wet and sending tingles right down into her sex. 

She put one hand at his shoulder, encouraging him to keep kissing her, but she let her other hand wander down. She traced a path through his chest hair to one nipple and, curious, she swirled her fingers around it gently, and then rolled the small pebble of flesh between finger and thumb. Ross made a sound into her mouth, a growl and a moan, and Demelza felt pleased with herself for discovering a way to draw such sounds from him. She did it again, and Ross nipped at her lower lip.

“That’s a new trick,” he murmured.

“I’m learning,” she said, emboldened by her success. 

“Then I’ll endeavour to give you plenty of opportunity for study,” Ross said, and he shifted position a little so that his cock nudged against the curls between her legs. Demelza keened high in her throat, gripping his shoulder so tightly that he knew there would be marks afterwards. He kissed her, swallowing the sounds she made, every gasp and moan as he rutted against her. Then, taken with an idea, Ross rolled over onto his back and took Demelza with him.

“What –,” she began, but Ross had hold of her hips and she was light enough to position as he wanted her – astride him, kneeling over him as he had knelt over her a moment before, her legs wide apart and the wet heat of her quim rubbing against his cock. Intoxicating. Mine, he thought, this is mine. There was a certain dark pleasure in knowing that no other man had seen her like this, nor ever would. Her nipples were hardened pebbles, her lips were parted, her eyes glinting in the sunlight. And then she understood what he wanted of her, and she put her hand to his cock and carefully lowered herself onto him, until he was deep within her.

“Oh,” Demelza said in a gasp. She reached to steady herself on his shoulder, and it brought her breasts delightfully close. Ross covered one with his hand, teasing at the nipple with his thumb, and Demelza moaned and thrust down against him, as if she wanted to take him still further into herself. “S’different this way,” she said. Ross rocked gently against her, and Demelza flung her head back with a cry. 

“Good different?” he questioned, and he could not suppress a groan when the inner muscles of her core contracted around his cock. She’d done that deliberately; he could tell by the way she looked at him, a smile playing about her mouth and her eyes sparkling. Ross pinched her nipple lightly, and she moaned and arched into his touch, rolling her hips against his and pressing her breast into his hand.

“Good,” she managed to say. “Full.” 

Her words sparked off a new wave of lust in Ross, and he lifted himself up, half-sitting, so he could bring her close and kiss her again. The change of angle made Demelza cry out, and then when Ross grasped her hips and rocked her against him, she whimpered into his mouth.

“Please,” she begged. This way, above him like this, every tiny movement seemed to send sparks of pleasure through her veins. “Please, Ross,” she said, and in answer Ross lifted her up a little, so his cock slid out from her. Then he brought her back down, her weight enough to bring him deep within her once more. Demelza grasped the idea swiftly and set her knees against the mattress, rising up and then sinking back down, not the hard thrust of when he was atop her but a different rhythm altogether. She could watch him more easily like this, through the haze of desire that clouded her vision a little. His eyes were so dark, his mouth open, and he moaned when she rolled her hips in a particular way. Judas God, she thought. Judas God, she felt so _full_. Filled up with him, body and heart, near brimming over with it.

And she was close to a peak. She could feel it, building up inside her, tension coiling and waiting for a release, tighter and tighter. She could no longer lift herself up off him, but Ross still held her hips, his hands like a hot brand on her skin, and he moved her easily, thrusting up to meet her when he brought her down, his cock so _deep_.

It was not enough, and Demelza tried to speak but couldn’t. So she helped herself, putting her fingers to her sex, finding that little nub of flesh that gave her such pleasure. She rubbed at it the way Ross did, and then Ross surged up against her and her fingers moved just _so_. Demelza cried out and shuddered, riding the wave that washed over her. Her knee slipped and she almost collapsed onto Ross, only he rolled her onto her side and went with her. He lifted her leg a little, an arm beneath her knee, and he thrust once, twice more, and then found his own peak with a groan. 

They lay together for a while, Demelza’s head tucked against Ross’s shoulder, his heart beating too fast and his cock softening inside her. His mind was wholly occupied with these physical sensations, and he wanted to dwell on them for a while, to shut out the rest of the world and exist solely here in this bed, in this moment. It would not last, he knew. It _could_ not last. But for a moment at least he could simply feel her skin against his, her warm breath on his neck. 

Then Demelza pressed a chaste kiss to his collarbone, and she carefully pulled away from him. Ross watched, lazy, as she slipped from the bed and went to the wash stand. She damped a cloth and washed herself, hissing a little as she did. Then, shyly, she brought the cloth to him. There was blood on him, and a little on the towel she’d spread on the bed, but he didn’t care. 

“Come back here,” he said, holding out a hand for her.

“I can’t,” she said apologetically. “I’ve supper to get, an’ my primroses to plant.”

Ross silently damned her primroses, and damned supper too. But he could admit to being hungry; dinner seemed long ago, and he hadn’t eaten any strawberries when they’d been picking them. In any case, Demelza hadn’t waited for an answer from him. Already she was lacing her stays and buttoning them to her drawers. In a few minutes she would be clothed again, the workday Demelza again. Ross had yet to come to terms with the transformations she seemed able to achieve so effortlessly, from one Demelza to another, but it was easier to see it when it was accompanied by outward signals. On went her shift, and then her yellow work dress, crumpled from being tied up on the beach and from lying in a heap on the bedroom floor. Her hair was a wild tangle, and the evening sun painted it bright with hues of red and gold.

He hadn’t yet cleared space for her clothes, he remembered suddenly. He must do that. Now, perhaps, while she prepared supper. He said as much to her, and Demelza turned wide eyes on him.

“Oh,” she said. “I’ve not got much. I don’t rightly need space, even with my new dress.”

“Must I remind you again that you’ll be my wife?” Ross asked her, amused. “Of course you’ll need space for your clothes. This will be your bedroom as much as mine.”

“Oh,” Demelza said again. She looked around, trying to envisage her things here. Her other work dress was here already, of course, folded neatly on a chair near the dressing table. That could be put away in a drawer, or even hung in the wardrobe. Her new frock could join it, and her second shift and combinations. But she hardly needed much space for those – Ross had far more clothes than she did, she’d barely need one of the drawers for everything she owned. She had few enough other possessions. A comb, a cracked hand mirror. Her sewing basket lived downstairs, and her cloak. But if Ross said she must bring her things here, then of course she would.

“Should I fetch my things now?” she asked, turning back to Ross. He was still lying on the bed, his feet tangled in the sheet but the rest of him bare. He was lean and tanned and wholly unashamed of his nakedness, in a way she could never emulate. She liked the way he looked at her when she was undressed, but she could never be as confident as he seemed to be.

“No, leave it until later,” Ross said. He sat up and stretched, and Demelza watched the play of his muscles for a moment. Then she caught his amused smirk and, blushing, turned away. 

“I’ll hurry with supper,” she murmured, and slipped from his room, opening the door only as much as was needed to let her through and making sure it was closed behind her. She crept downstairs on tiptoe, hoping to evade unwanted attention. Prudie and Jud were in the house somewhere, Prudie hopefully keeping an eye on the supper to see that it didn’t burn. Demelza had set a rabbit pie to cook slowly, and it should not have burned – or she wouldn’t have left it at all – but she hadn’t intended to be gone for so long. Ross had distracted her, in various pleasant ways.

The pie was unharmed, and Prudie had even put vegetables to roast. She looked at Demelza askance when Demelza came into the kitchen, and then she clicked her tongue against her teeth.

“There’ll be talk, if he keeps leavin’ marks on you like that,” she said. Demelza lifted a hand to her neck, her cheeks heating. “As if there won’t be talk enough,” Prudie went on, hands on her hips as she scowled at Demelza. “You wear a kerchief when you go Sawle next, you hear? Or Mellin, either.”

“Yes, Prudie,” said Demelza meekly, too embarrassed to say more. She must find some way to speak to Ross about it, for he seemed to have a fondness for marking her neck, and Prudie was right. Sooner or later somebody would see it, somebody who would use it as fodder for gossip. People would have enough to talk over as it was. Demelza knew what they must be saying about her, and about Ross. She felt the slight to _his_ reputation more than hers. He was so well-liked in the district, looked up to not merely as a land-owner and gentleman but as a fair man who did not look down on the poor simply for being poor. Demelza hated to think that they might regard him differently now, because he intended to marry her.

“Mind the stove for me? I’ve primroses to put in the garden,” she said to Prudie, and escaped the kitchen without further reprimand. She had left her basket in the hallway, and now she caught it up and went outside, hoping to ease her discomfort by tending to her flowers. The primroses had wilted a little, out of the ground for longer than she had meant to leave them, but she found a bare patch of flower bed and began to dig a hole. 

Garrick came bounding to see her then, barking excitedly and trying, in his own way, to help her dig. He sent dry, sandy soil spraying everywhere, all over Demelza and over the basket beside her, still filled with strawberries. 

“Get off,” she ordered him, giving him a shove, but Garrick kept digging. She half-wondered if he had hidden a bone somewhere near, to be digging so enthusiastically. Then a sharp whistle from the door called him off. Demelza looked up, shading her eyes with a hand, to see Ross in the doorway, his waistcoat only half buttoned. Garrick went bounding over to him, and then was distracted by a bee and galloped off in chase of it. Demelza smiled and brushed soil from her skirt.

“You look scarcely more clean than the day you arrived here,” Ross remarked. “Though I trust I shan’t have to swill you under the pump, this time.” He was teasing, and she knew it, but his words caught at the worries that Prudie had revived and made her hands clumsy as she tried to shake off the soil. 

Ross saw her uneasiness, but though he could guess the reason for it, he chose not to comment. He became too easily impatient with her when her insecurity showed, for he disliked seeing her unconfident and disliked the rules of society that made her so. Better not to say anything, and let time provide a balm for her worries. There was little he could say that had not already been said, after all, and if he hadn’t helped before, it was hardly likely he could help her now.

“Supper won’t be long,” Demelza said, not looking at him. Ross watched her as she put her plants into the hole she had dug and covered the roots with soil. “I wanted to get this in afore we ate.” 

Ross scowled, but only briefly and only because her attention was fixed elsewhere. Her bright, cheerful mood of earlier had gone. Her contentment from their coupling had faded away. She was at once so very changeable and so completely dependable. He trusted her to run the house, to see to his needs, to challenge his opinions and to brighten his days. Yet this Demelza was not the young woman who had left him scarcely ten minutes before. She had seemed startled at the idea of moving her things into his room, but he thought she’d been pleased too. Perhaps Prudie or Jud had said something to her since she’d come down, something to rouse her worries again and make her sensitive to his teasing comment. Let either of them censure Demelza in his hearing, and Ross would make them sorry for it. But so far both Paynters had been unusually quiet about the upcoming wedding, at least where there was any chance that he might hear them.

“Demelza,” he said, without quite knowing what he meant to say.

“Yes, sir?”

Ross sighed and shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “I must write back to Francis. Call me when supper is served.”

“Yes, sir,” Demelza said again. Ross did not press her on the use of his name. She was growing used to it, but the lines blurred when he was giving her instructions, and he was aware of his own struggle on occasion, to soften his tone when he wanted her to do something so she should not think that he was still a master ordering a servant to perform a task.

In truth, there was really no need for him to write back to Francis, for a meeting had been suggested for Monday and Ross had no prior commitments to keep him from riding over to Grambler mine then, to share the news. Francis would not expect a note unless Ross could not come. But there was other correspondence that he ought to attend to, in the time before supper, and he had the sense that Demelza wanted to be left alone for a while.

By supper Demelza had regained her usual spirits, and she chattered gaily about her garden, the farmyard doings, and her plans for the strawberries they had picked. Ross was content to listen to her talk. He added an occasional comment or question when it was required, but Demelza carried the conversation without much prompting. He was glad to see her happy again, though he knew her nagging doubts would resurface. But Demelza’s temperament was not one that allowed her to be unhappy for long. Always some joyful thought elevated her mood.

He praised the rabbit pie just to see her beaming smile. He was unaccountably fond of the happy look that she wore whenever he offered her any kind of praise, and he wanted to see it after her earlier discontent.

“It’s a mite dry,” she said, though she was clearly pleased by the compliment. “I left it too long.”

“Well, I distracted you,” said Ross, watching as Demelza flushed and ducked her head, as if to avoid his gaze. “Besides, it isn’t dry,” he added. “Own your accomplishments, Demelza. You’ve become a good cook.” 

“At least I’ve never made you ill,” Demelza said, looking up at him again. Her smile was teasing now, the joke shared between them and made more amusing for being so. Was this what it would be like when they were settled together as man and wife, he wondered. Would there be more of sharing confidences and jokes and easy companionship? It was pointless to speculate. On some matters he could be sure of what Demelza would say or do, but in this – in looking forwards to their life together – he was fumbling in the dark. What his married life would be like was a mystery. He had few expectations, but he had some hopes. A wife as a companion, a helpmeet, those were things he felt were reasonable to hope for and to expect. But he had seen many marriages fall into cool civility, and he was aware of how much Demelza felt them to be beginning on unequal footing. No man with any sense could help but see how easily this course could end in disaster.

“Sit and read to me after supper,” Ross said, surprising himself as much as it clearly surprised Demelza. 

“Oh, no,” she protested. “I couldn’t. I can’t.” She dropped her fork and leaned back in her chair, her frown expressing her consternation. “I _can’t_ , Ross,” she said.

“Nonsense,” said Ross, lifting an eyebrow as he looked at her. “You need to practice, and the newspaper is printed. You’ll be able to read it easily enough.” Demelza did not look convinced. Ross finished the last of his pie and wiped his mouth. “I would like you to,” he said at last, deliberate and considered. “But of course if you don’t want to, you need not.” It was not playing fair, for he knew full well her eagerness to please him. There was a spark of something in Demelza’s eyes that told him that she, too, thought him unfair. But she made no further complaint, not even when he said that she should leave the dishes for Prudie, rather than clean them herself.

After she had cleared the table, Demelza brought a candle close as Ross spread the newspaper across the table top. She still felt uncertain, afraid lest he should laugh at her mistakes. She had seen him try to hide his smiles before, when she had made a mistake with her reading or when she had erred in some harmless way about the house. She didn’t mind his teasing, but laughter was another thing. There was no cruelty in it, but it made her ashamed of her own ignorance. 

But Ross had put the idea to her in a way that Demelza had been unable to refuse, and now she sat beside him and frowned down at the columns and rows of small printed text. The candle, and the fading daylight through the windows, made the printing clear enough to read, but there was so much of it that Demelza wasn’t sure where she should begin. Ross drew his chair a little closer to hers and tapped his forefinger against the enlarged first letter of one article.

“Here,” he said. “Try this one.”

She began slowly. She stumbled over the longer and unfamiliar words, but Ross was patient and helped her learn the meaning and pronunciation those words she struggled with. Ross had been right; Demelza found the printed text easier to learn from than his script. There seemed a wider variety of words in the newspaper than in the few books she had dared to steal a look at, on occasion, but by the end of the first article she felt her confidence growing, and she turned to him with a wide smile. Ross’s own look was warm and genuine, and she couldn’t resist leaning towards him to press a kiss to those smiling lips. But before he could respond, Demelza withdrew. 

“Shall I read another?” she asked him, more eager now than she had been at the beginning. Being able to read the article – even with help, and even without understanding the whole meaning of the piece – had buoyed her confidence. With Ross’s consent she read another article, and then another. At some point Ross’s arm went around her waist as they leaned close together over the newspaper. He seemed unaware of the action, and Demelza chose not to comment, for fear that he would take his arm from around her and pull away again.

“I don’t understand above half of what they say,” she confessed to Ross, when it grew too dark to read any more without more light. “But I’d never thought of readin’ at all, before I came here. It’s – it’s like when the sun comes up, sudden like, and all at once you can see more’n you ever thought was there to be seen.” She couldn’t think of any other way to explain what she meant. She could not explain how learning to read and write had become caught up and bound together with the whole lightness of her life here at Nampara. Too much in the past week had reminded her of her early life – her father’s visit, and then telling Ross today about how she had found Garrick – and Demelza could not explain to Ross how dark and cramped and inwards-looking her life had been before he had plucked her out of a fight and out of the dirt and given her space to lift her head and discover a world that was not made up of hunger and pain and drudgery. She could not explain to him how being able to read made her aware of how much world there was, and how much of good there was in it.

Ross was smiling, mouth twisted to one side as if he could keep back a laugh that way, and his eyes seemed to twinkle in the candlelight. Demelza found she didn’t mind it, at least for now, here in the darkening parlour, his arm around her waist. She didn’t mind that her ignorance made him smile. She was learning fast, devouring new words as they came across her path, and though he would always know more, she thought that perhaps she _could_ learn all that she needed to know – all that she would _need_ to know, as his wife. 

Besides, she thought, even if I don’t know much yet, he asked me to read to him; he seemed to think it’d please him; I hope it has; I think it has. 

“Shall I light more candles?” she asked him then. “D’you need to be workin’? I ought to check on the chickens afore it gets much darker, I think there’s been a fox about an’ Prudie most often forgets to shut the coop.”

“Oh? We’re not missing any chickens, are we?” Ross took his arm from around Demelza, sparing a moment to wonder when he had reached out to her. It had not been intentional. No thought had driven him to do so, and he had hardly even realised it until she had stopped reading. 

“Just one,” said Demelza, folding away the newspaper with precise neatness. “’Course, It mayn’t be a fox at all, but I’d rather be safe than lose half the poultry.” She rose and put the paper away. “Do you need aught before I go?” she asked, but Ross shook his head and watched her leave the parlour. It was late enough to go to bed, now darkness was setting in properly. The sun would rise early in the morning, and long daylight hours meant more time to work in the fields. The barley would be ready to harvest soon. The calves would be fully weaned soon, too, and he’d yet to decide which of the bull calves to fatten for meat and which might be kept for breeding, or to sell later on. Then there was the mine, of course. Ross liked to go down there frequently if he could. He had not been for several days, and though he had complete confidence in Henshawe and Zacky Martin, still he liked to be down in the tunnels himself, helping to work what they had found so far, ferrying attle back to be winched to the surface. Seeing how much more ironstone they had to blast through in their increasingly desperate search for copper.

He rose and poured himself a small glass of canary wine and then went to stand at the window, staring out into the darkness. He could see nothing now, the candle behind him reflecting off the panes of glass and obscuring anything that the moon and stars might reveal. He could hear Demelza in the kitchen, returned from seeing that all the chickens were accounted for and safe for the night. She was singing, which meant neither Jud nor Prudie was about. Probably they had already retired. 

Ross drank his wine and blew out the candle on the table. Then he went in search of Demelza, and waited in the kitchen doorway for a moment, watching as she moved around the kitchen setting things to rights. A swell of fondness rose within him, a warmth in his heart that made him feel as though his chest was expanding. He knew she was unsure and cautious in their changing relationship, but even through her doubts she worked to please him and to look after his home. Their home, he corrected himself. Their home.

“Demelza,” he said, softly so that he would not disturb Garrick, slumbering by the fire. Demelza dried a plate and looked up at him in mute enquiry. “Leave that and come to bed,” Ross said.

He spoke mildly enough that Demelza knew it to be a request or a suggestion, not an order. She looked around the kitchen to see what else needed doing, and what might wait for morning. Prudie had done most of the evening’s chores, though she’d left some of the dishes soaking rather than clean them. The floor was swept, the stove banked for the night. Garrick was fed and asleep already. Nothing kept her here, so she dried her hands on a dishcloth, blew out the candles, and followed him from the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom. 

She had brought her things here earlier, when she’d come up to wash her hands and face before supper, and she could see how Ross glanced around the room and took note of the few additions that were visible. Her comb and her little cracked mirror were on the dressing table, her clothes neatly put away in the drawers he had emptied for her. Demelza couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his expression inscrutable and his face painted with shadows as the candle flame danced and flickered. She stood beside the closed bedroom door for a moment, watching him. 

“You need a new comb,” was all Ross said, when at last he spoke. “Yours is missing half the teeth. I must get you a new one.”

“It does well enough,” Demelza said with a shake of her head. She was reassured by his attitude, her momentary tension falling away and leaving only contentment at being here with him. People can say what they like, she thought rebelliously, so long as he and I are happy, and he does make me so happy. “I’ve no need of another,” she added. “Truly.”

“I believe I’m entitled to give you a small thing like a new comb,” Ross said, beginning to undress himself for bed. “Come to bed, Demelza. You make me think you don’t want to be here, standing at the door like that.”

“Yes, Ross,” she said, and hurried to obey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) Certain lines of dialogue taken from 1x04 of Poldark, relocated in my attempt to combine the two canons.


	5. Chapter 5

The banns were read for the second time on the next Sunday. On Monday afternoon, a week before the wedding, Demelza was visited by Mrs Zacky Martin and Jinny Carter, the latter with her newborn babe held close to her chest in a sling. Demelza was alone in the house, Jud out in the fields and Prudie gone to help the young Martin children with the near-weaned calves. Ross had been working around the farm in the morning, but now he had gone to Grambler mine to meet his cousin Francis. Demelza could not guess at what his mood would be, when he returned. She had no way of knowing what Francis might say to Ross, what arguments he might put to use in dissuading Ross from his set course – for she could not imagine that Francis Poldark would easily accept that his cousin was marrying his kitchen maid.

“Did you ought to be walking so far?” Demelza asked Jinny, urging her to sit. She had been jam-making, and the whole kitchen was filled with the heat and the strong, syrupy scent of strawberry preserves. Her hands were sticky with it, but she’d filled half a dozen jars and felt pleased with her work. “It’s only been two weeks since the child was born,” she added.

“I’d be back at work if I’d work to get to,” said Jinny, accepting the seat nevertheless. She looked pale and worn, though her cheeks bore a slight flush from the walk from Mellin Cottages to Nampara. The baby was awake in its sling, bright eyes peeking out at Demelza. 

Mrs Zacky set next to her daughter, round and ruddy and cheerful.

“’Twas a simple birth,” she said, nodding agreement to Jinny. “An’ no need for coddlin’ after, though o’ course things ain’t been easy, wi’ young Jim gone.” They were all quiet for a moment, and it was only because Demelza was looking closely that she saw pain in Jinny’s expression, quickly hidden away. She felt ashamed for seeing it, as if she had peeped into Jinny’s own private grief. She turned away and went to set the kettle to boil, pretending that she hadn’t seen the momentary lapse in composure.

“I’ll make tea,” she said. “An’ I’ve some fruit buns, if you’d like.” She would have offered such hospitality before, but she felt an added aspect to it now, an awareness that soon she would be mistress here and thus would have a duty to show hospitality to visitors. She would be hostess, if other visitors came in the future – as of course they would. Ross had few close friends but those he had were always welcomed at Nampara. Then there was his family, too. They had always visited occasionally, usually Verity but also Francis and Elizabeth. But perhaps those visits would never happen, after the wedding. Once they knew. 

“Ah, that’s mighty kind, miss,” said Mrs Zacky. Demelza, startled, knocked the kettle and hissed at the sting of hot metal against her skin. A week to go, she thought to herself, and she’d yet to be easy with being addressed in such a way. Especially here, in Nampara itself, where neither Jud nor Prudie addressed her even by name most of the time. Mrs Zacky’s eyes were sharp and assessing, but Demelza sucked her burnt finger into her mouth and, single-handedly, got out cups and saucers and a plate full of the fruit buns she had made in the morning. 

“Be it Captain Poldark you’re here to see?” she asked as the kettle came to the boil. “He’s gone to see Mister Francis, over at Grambler, but I ‘spect he’ll be back soon enough, if you want to wait.”

“Jinny come for the cap’n, I come for ee, miss,” said Mrs Zacky. Demelza poured boiling water over the tea leaves in the teapot, then brought it to the table and sat down, perching on the edge of her seat. She felt full of nerves, a fluttering, fidgeting kind of feeling in her stomach and breast. She could not imagine what Mrs Zacky could want to see her for. They were pleasant enough to her, but the Martins were Ross’s friends first and foremost. Demelza had, it was true, formed a friendship with Jinny – but she did not know how that friendship would continue, once Demelza was lifted into a different class. Ross seemed to manage it, but then Ross belonged here. She was an outsider still, even after three years. 

“I wanted to ask ‘im if ‘e’d mind me christening this ‘un after him,” Jinny said, lifting a hand to smooth over the baby’s soft, downy hair. “Me and Jim talked about it, if t’were a boy. Benjamin Ross, we thought. But o’ course if Cap’n Poldark don’t want it, I’d not mind.” She smiled her small, sweet smile. “It were just a fancy we ‘ad, after ‘e did so much, lettin’ us have the cottage and keepin’ Jim in work.”

Demelza turned it over in her mind but said nothing of her doubts to Jinny. She thought she could guess at what Ross would say. He would be in conflict over it, for he felt he had failed Jim when it counted most. His instinct would be to reject the idea, wholly and completely, though he was sure to do so in such a gracious manner that Jinny could take no offence. But perhaps he would agree. Perhaps he would accept the honour for what it was – a simple gesture of esteem from a couple who owed him much.

“Well,” she said aloud, “he’ll be back soon, like as not. I know he wanted to go down to the mine later, afore supper, so I s’pose he won’t be too long now.” She poured the tea and nudged the plate of buns a little further towards her visitors. “They’re fresh this morning,” she said. 

“Thank ee,” said Mrs Zacky. “Now, where did I put that parcel, Jinny?” She patted at her pockets, but it was Jinny who produced the small parcel from within the baby’s sling. It was a small thing, wrapped in an old newspaper and a bit of twine. “Ah, tha’s right,” Mrs Zacky nodded. “Now, miss, I do hope you’ll not mind us takin’ the liberty o’ bringin’ this over for ee.” Demelza took the parcel from Jinny and turned it over in her hands wonderingly. “We’ve heard the banns, o’ course,” Mrs Zacky added. Demelza’s mouth was dry, but her hands were steady as she began to unpick at the knot in the twine. Yes, of course they had heard the banns. The Martins were church-going folk, mostly. “An’ Cap’n Poldark told my Zacky,” Mrs Zacky was saying. Demelza endeavoured to concentrate. “So we thought, Jinny and me, that you’d not mind a bit of a present, like, for the weddin’.”

Demelza opened the newspaper and found within three handkerchiefs, folded small and neat. They were plain enough, squares of cloth hemmed around, but in one corner of each handkerchief were stitched two letters, ‘D’ and ‘P’. Plain stitching, by hands that were used to mending tears in clothing and not to any kind of embroidery, but so carefully done that, to Demelza, it felt like the finest thing in the world.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, you’re that kind.”

“You like ‘em, then?” Jinny asked her, taking a bun at last but not starting to eat it. 

“I do,” Demelza said, tracing a finger over the stitches. DP, she thought. Demelza Poldark. And they were given to her so simply, in such an ordinary way, as if it were every day that a kitchen maid was engaged to marry a country gentleman. They had done this despite the hardship of their lives, despite Jinny’s newborn babe and the cruel absence of Jim Carter. She had never known kindnesses like this existed, before coming to Nampara. It was still a rare enough occurrence that she felt she wanted to treasure the moment close always, to hoard the memory up in her mind and her heart for the rest of her life. “Thank you,” she said, and impulsively reached out to touch Jinny’s hand. “I’ve never had anythin’ like it.”

“Well,” said Mrs Zacky, “’kerchiefs are a right sensible thing t’give, I always think. Useful, ais? An’ wi’ your letters on. Well, your letters as will be.”

The kitchen door swung open just then, admitting Ross. His hat was in his hand, his coat folded over his arm. It had been a satisfactory meeting with Francis, at least from his perspective. He had discharged his promise to Elizabeth to speak to his cousin about his habits, and he had disclosed the information of his own impending marriage. Luck had been on his side for once, for Francis had not known that that banns had been read twice already. The Trenwith Poldarks had not attended church for a fortnight, for Verity was ill and Elizabeth was disinclined to go in the heat. Since Francis only attended as a duty, and only when Elizabeth went, the news that Ross intended to marry Demelza had not yet reached Trenwith, not even from their servants or local gossip. Francis had been shocked, but the shock had faded to surprise and then to an uneasy kind of acceptance. 

By now, of course, Francis would be back at Trenwith and spreading the news among the family. There were likely to be stronger feelings there. He hoped Verity would be happy for him. She, of all of them, was least likely to judge.

He stopped in the kitchen doorway, the sun on his back, taking in the occupants of the room. Demelza looked as though she might startle from her chair at a sudden noise, but Mrs Zacky Martin was placid and Jinny Carter looked as she ever did, sweet and trusting. That trust in her expression was like a dagger to his heart, and for a few moments all he could think about was that damned courtroom and Halse sentencing Jim to two years in prison. Then he thrust the memory aside and offered them a smile that was as welcoming as he could manage.

“Good day, ladies,” he said. “Mrs Zacky, you’re looking well. Jinny.” Demelza had offered them tea and something to eat, he saw – a far cry from her early attempts at hospitality, back when she’d been an awkward young maid still learning the way of things. He turned to hang his coat and hat on the hook at the back of the kitchen door, taking a moment to compose himself properly for the unexpected visitors. 

“Will you take tea, R-Ross?” Demelza asked him, stuttering only slightly over his name. It was, Ross reflected, the first time she had addressed him so in front of others. 

“Yes, if I’m wanted here,” he said, and took a seat at the table as Demelza rose to fetch another cup. 

“We won’ keep you, Cap’n, if you’ve work elsewhere,” said Mrs Zacky.

“Nothing that won’t wait. What can I do for you?”

“They brought me these,” said Demelza, returning to the table and gesturing at the handkerchiefs that lay haphazardly in a piece of old newspaper. Ross reached for one, found the embroidered initials at once, and wondered how Demelza had reacted to it. “As a – a weddin’ present,” Demelza added, though it was clear enough without the clarification. Ross watched her intently as she poured him a cup of tea, but for once her expression betrayed nothing of her nerves, not even to him.

“That’s very kind,” he said to Mrs Zacky, though he watched Demelza for a moment more. 

“Jinny did the stitchin’,” Mrs Zacky told him. “Now, Jinny, say your piece and we’ll be off an’ out of Miss Demelza’s way.” 

Jinny fumbled with the remnants of her bun and lifted her head to meet Ross’s gaze. “If Jim’d been here, sir, he’d have asked,” she said, “but we talked on it, afore…” She trailed off, seemingly unable to say it, and Ross nodded once, curtly. Before Jim had been arrested and tried and sentenced, she meant to say. “We was goin’ to ask if you’d mind us namin’ the baby after ee,” said Jinny. Ross looked at her in mute surprise, and then he glanced at Demelza to see if she’d known. She gave him the tiniest of nods, and Ross refocused his attention on Jinny. “Benjamin Ross, we thought,” Jinny told him. “If it were a boy. If ee don’ want it, sir, I’d not mind, but Jim ‘n me, we’d like it.”

Ross’s first instinct was to refuse. The idea seemed abhorrent, that Jim’s child, Jim’s _son_ , should be named even in part after the man who had failed so utterly to obtain mercy for Jim. Two years imprisoned might mean Jim would return to his wife and child – or it might not. Jim was not in the best of health, and conditions were harsh in the prisons. Better than hanging, but barely so. It might still be a death sentence for him. He hadn’t even had a chance to see his son. Ross had to wonder if Jim even knew that he _had_ a son. Word must have been sent, but there were many miles between Mellin Cottages and Bodmin gaol, and in his experience, jailers were not prone to compassion. Even if a message had reached Bodmin, there was no knowing whether it had reached Jim himself.

He opened his mouth to refuse, to advise in jest that no child ought to be saddled with a name that associated it with a renegade like himself. But all he did was take a breath, and then he closed his mouth and looked down at the child, the baby boy in his sling across his mother’s chest.

He was small and red and Ross, no judge of such things, supposed that he was as handsome or ugly as most babies in their early infancy. But he was innocent, and Ross found that he could not lay his own shame upon the child. Let him bear Ross’s name, if it pleased Jinny.

“Of course, if you want to,” he said, instead of refusing. He caught a glimpse of Demelza’s smile; she was pleased with his decision. She didn’t understand his feelings, the fault in his character that lead him to endless scrutiny of his own mistakes. And it was a fault. There was rarely any satisfaction in introspection. Jinny was smiling too, in simple delight that made him glad he had agreed. “When will he be baptised?” he asked then.

“This week, sir,” Jinny answered. “Thursday mornin’. At ten, parson said.” She hesitated a moment, and looked at her mother. Mrs Zacky lifted an eyebrow, as if to encourage her daughter onwards. “Sir – would ee – that is –,” 

“What is it, Jinny?” Ross asked her patiently. 

“Jim ‘n me, we didn’ talk on this serious,” said Jinny, rushing her words a little. “But would – would it be too much a liberty to ask if ee’d be godfather?”

Ross was momentarily speechless. Lending the baby his name was one thing, but to be the child’s godfather was quite another. It wasn’t a liberty for Jinny to ask – or at least he did not feel it so – but it felt an extraordinary request given that Ross attended church hardly three times in a twelvemonth, and then only for particular occasions. But he could see reasons for agreeing, nonetheless, particularly with Jim gone. Zacky and Mrs Zacky had many calls on them; if anything happened to Jinny, another mouth to feed would put a strain on them. Ross felt himself responsible for Jim’s plight, and so he felt, rightly or wrongly, that he ought to take some responsibility for Jim’s child, should the worst happen and it be left parentless. Being the boy’s godfather would mean he could help at times, if his help was needed or requested. 

It was the least he could do, after failing Jim.

“I would be honoured,” he said. “Thursday at ten. I’ll be there.” He waved away her thanks. “And now I must go,” he said, draining his cup. “There are too many crows making a nuisance of themselves in the wheat field, I must thin them out.” He rose and touched Demelza’s shoulder briefly as he went past her, hoping the gesture would be taken as he meant it. Support for her – she had not flinched when Mrs Zacky had called her ‘Miss Demelza’ – and gratitude for her support of him.

Once Ross had gone out to the farm, Mrs Zacky and Jinny stayed only a few moments more. Mrs Zacky had young children at home still, and the baby was beginning to grow restless. Demelza walked them to the stream, and then, rather than return to the kitchen, she went to wander in search of fresh flowers for the parlour. She could not take long, for there was supper still to get, but she wanted a few minutes with nothing but her own thoughts for company. The kind gesture of the handkerchiefs had roused in her an anticipation of her future, rather than the nerves and anxieties that had been so dominant in her mind over the past days, and Demelza wanted a little time alone to let that joy fill her whole self before she returned to her tasks. She would be Demelza Poldark; she would belong to Ross, properly and officially. In all her worrying that she would never be able to be a suitable wife for him, she had almost lost sight of how happy it made her that he had chosen to marry her, that he cared for her even the slightest amount. Now she basked in her happiness and thought over and over: I’ll be his wife, and no matter what folks say they’ll not be able to change that; we’ll be wed and I’m so happy, so happy.

Supper was taken mostly in silence that evening. Ross seemed preoccupied and Demelza, well used to his moods after living in his house for three years, was accordingly mute unless he spoke first. He drank brandy with his meal, rather than the small beer they had brewed the year before. That was, in Demelza’s experience, a sign that he could not be an agreeable companion this evening, that some inner conflict had brought him back to trying to drown his misfortunes with the brandy. So she said little except when he asked her a direct question, which he seldom did. When she cleared the main course and brought out dishes of strawberry preserves for pudding, he had moved onto his second glass of brandy and Demelza slipped back into her seat opposite him and wished she knew some way to coax him out of such a brooding mood.

“You’ve not asked what Francis said,” Ross said, breaking the silence that had been leaning towards tenseness as Demelza began to eat her preserves. 

“No,” she agreed. “I supposed you’d tell me when you’d a mind to.” That made Ross glance at her sharply, but there was nothing in her expression to match the slight edge to her words. Nothing had been meant by it, he decided. It was Ross who had taken her answer amiss. No more brandy tonight. He’d inflicted his bad mood on Demelza too often of late, particularly over Jim’s fate. She didn’t deserve it. 

“Do you want to know?” he asked her, finishing the brandy in his glass and pushing the bottle away from him before he could be tempted to have more. Demelza glanced down at it, then back up at him. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but he thought she looked a little more softly at him.

“Do it matter?” she asked him in return, tilting her head a little. The fading sunlight glinted against her hair. There was a yellowing bruise on her neck. No more of that, she’d told him firmly the other night. Prudie had come as near to scolding Demelza as she dared, it seemed. It was a pity, for Ross had found great satisfaction in seeing his mark on her, but Prudie – and Demelza – were right to say it would draw unwanted gossip. There were other places he could choose to lavish attention upon. “What he said, do it matter to you?” Demelza pressed him.

“Does it,” Ross corrected her. “No, it doesn’t, particularly. I don’t want us to quarrel again, but there’s nothing he can do to change my mind.” 

Demelza laughed, a wonderfully merry sound that went some way to soothing him back into better spirits.

“Is there aught in the world could change your mind?” she said teasingly. Ross lifted an eyebrow and looked at her, remembering that night a week and a half ago when she’d worn his mother’s dress and come to his room. She’d changed his mind then, or perhaps she’d simply weakened his resolve. Demelza seemed to guess what he was thinking; a flush spread across her cheeks, though she didn’t look away from him. He remembered the feel of her skin, when he’d slid his hands inside the dress and clasped her waist, so soft beneath his calloused fingers. 

“Ross,” Demelza said, so softly that he could barely hear her, seated close together though they were. “Ross, don’t look at me like that, please.”

“Why not?” He reached out and took her hand in his. “Don’t you like it?”

“I like it too much, an’ I’ve too much to do this evenin’ still to be – to – oh, _Ross_ ,” she said. She lifted their joined hands to her mouth and kissed his hand. “Don’t tease me, Ross,” she entreated. She looked so enticing, face flushed and eyes downcast and hand clutching at his. By now he knew well the signs of her need, the way she looked when she was as full of desire as he was. But she had asked him to stop, and so he sighed and squeezed her hand a little before releasing it.

“Very well, my dear,” he said. Demelza flashed him a startled glance, but Ross seemed unaware that he had bestowed such an endearment. ‘My dear’, she thought happily. One week to go, now. In a week’s time she would be his wife. Demelza Poldark. “For now, at least,” Ross added, with a hint of mischief in his expression. “An early night tonight, I think.”

Demelza slept little that night, kept awake by Ross when she reached their bed – though not unwillingly – and woken early by her own restless happiness. She slipped from the bed just as the sun was beginning to appear over the distant horizon, dressed as silently as she could, and left Nampara house quiet and peaceful behind her.

Garrick came with her, of course, her faithful companion. He loped along at her side, straying now and then when he caught a scent or wanted to investigate some flying insect. Demelza wandered through her garden first, finding one or two snails to drown in a bucket of water that she kept ready for the purpose. Then she went across the sandy waste between garden and beach, and into Nampara Cove, discarding shoes and stockings before she reached the beach. The sand was cool beneath her feet, but though the sun had only just begun to rise, the day was already promising to be hot. Even here, right at the sea’s edge, there was hardly any breeze.

Garrick went to play in the little waves that lapped at the sand, but Demelza stayed out of the sea’s reach. She perched herself on a dry rock, high enough that her toes barely reached the sand, and she watched Garrick as he leaped and lurched around, trying to catch the waves as they came in. Sometimes he flung a piece of seaweed into the air in his exuberance. Once or twice the seaweed landed on him as it came back down, and then he barked and turned in circles and shook himself vigorously to get the offending piece of greenery off him. Demelza smiled at the sight. She drew her feet up onto the rock and hugged her knees to her chest. She felt so happy, this morning. She felt a great lightness that seemed to fill every inch of her. Though she knew her worries would return, she now felt them insignificant next to the truth that Ross had chosen her. In less than a week now she would be his wife. She would wake up beside him, this time next week, the first morning of her life as Demelza Poldark.

She laughed to herself and hugged her knees harder, feeling as though she might burst if she could not find some way to let out this bright happiness. None of the rest of it matters, she thought; only him, and me; and I know he cares for me at least a little, he couldn’t hold me so tender if he didn’t care at all; so we’ll be married and I’ll work hard, I’ll make sure he don’t have cause to regret it.

Tuesday today. Six days left, and her dress was barely half-finished. What other chores did she have today? The daily tasks, of course. Chickens to feed, calves to tend, food to prepare. The daily dusting and sweeping might be left to Prudie, perhaps. That would give her time for sewing. Ross was likely to want to go to Wheal Leisure today, so that meant a dinner for him to carry, and she could just have bread and cheese for her own dinner. Prudie and Jud could shift for themselves. That would make even more time for sewing. She must get the frock finished. She’d not felt strongly about it either way, before she’d started making it with Prudie’s help, but now she wanted to wear it when she married Ross. A new dress for a new life.

The rock was big enough and smooth to lie down on, and now Demelza lay back and stared up at the sky. White clouds skittered across the blue that seemed to grow lighter with every breath she took. The rock beneath her was warm. The rhythmic sound of the waves was soothing, familiar. Demelza breathed in the salt air and heard gulls calling. She began to feel more peaceful, though she was still so happy that she could almost taste it. But it was a calmer happiness, the energy of it soothed away by the peace of her surroundings.

Then Garrick began to bark, happy and excited, and Demelza sat up and looked around to see what had caused it. Ross was approaching, his waistcoat open and his hair in disarray.

Ross had woken alone and, half-asleep still, had reached for Demelza and found her absent. There had been no sign of her in the house, and Garrick was missing also, and he had felt discontented and unaccountably concerned. Though he knew she often went wandering early in the morning to find fresh flowers, some dark, nightmarish unease seemed to claw at him now. He could not shake the idea that Jud might have said something to Demelza, or that she might have been too unsettled by Mrs Zacky’s obvious acceptance of Demelza’s change in situation. Perhaps something had happened to make Demelza believe that she must leave, as she had tried to do nearly two weeks ago. The uneasy spectre would have dissipated in a moment had Ross woken to find Demelza still beside him in the bed, but without her it clutched hold of him and made him want to seek her out. 

Now, seeing her bathed in sunshine, he cast aside the shadow as foolishness and recovered his spirits well enough to joke about it when he reached her side.

“I almost wondered if you’d decided to run away again,” he said, lifting a hand to tug gently at one of her curls. “It’s early to be about.”

“I’d never,” Demelza protested at once. “You did ought to know that, Ross. I’ll never leave. Not by choice.”

“Recent evidence to the contrary,” Ross said wryly. Demelza pursed her lips and gave him a speaking look, and Ross chuckled and relented. “Yes, alright,” he said. “I’ve a fairly good idea. Why are you up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, but offered no elaboration. Ross glanced her over critically, but could see nothing to speak of illness or distress. On the contrary, Demelza looked in perfect health, and there was something joyful lurking behind her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. He had to kiss her then, to try to capture the joy from her lips – it was an irresistible urge, and there was, after all, no reason to resist it. Ross bent and caught her mouth with his. The position was awkward, for Demelza’s perch on the rock meant he was stooped over at an uncomfortable angle, and their noses bumped against each other for a moment. Ross settled a hand on her shoulder and the other somewhere near her knee. Her lips parted, and he heard her breath stutter a little when he grazed his teeth across her lower lip. This was an addiction, he thought with some distant part of his mind. He had become addicted to kissing her. Her fingers clutched at his shirt, and he felt her smiling against his mouth, as if her happiness, her joy, had increased for being kissed.

And so it had, for Ross’s embraces were still new enough to Demelza that each one made her feel anew all her love for him, as well as her desire. None of her doubts and concerns could touch her when he kissed her like this, when he looked at her in a certain way, or when he took her to bed. There was no room for any of it. She was too happy for anything to mar that happiness, on those occasions when he let her see and feel how he desired her.

Ross used the hand on her shoulder to press her back down onto the rock, until she was lying flat again. Her feet dangled over the edge. Ross rested above her, one leg between hers and his weight mostly through his arms. She could feel how his breath had quickened. It had begun gently, this kiss, but it had not remained so for long. Ross kissed her deeply now, his tongue dancing against hers, his stubble rasping at her skin. Demelza felt intoxicated with it, and so breathless that her stays began to feel too tight. 

He grazed his teeth against her jaw, moving down from her mouth to her throat, and Demelza lifted a hand and cupped his cheek.

“Ross,” she admonished. Ross muttered something into her skin, the words inaudible but the tone unmistakeable. Then he turned his head into her hand, pressing his lips to her palm. 

“Very well,” he said, somewhat grudgingly. He lifted himself up and shifted away from her, as if to move off the rock, and Demelza felt a pang of frustration at herself for stopping him now, when a familiar heat was coiling in her loins. But Ross did not move off the rock, or at least not far – he stood at her feet, eyes sparkling at her, mouth curved with mischief. Demelza propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him, narrowing her eyes against the slight glare of the sun on the waves behind him. She knew that expression, she knew what it meant. It made her breath catch in her throat. 

Ross put his hands on her knees, sliding her skirt upwards until it was hitched above her waist. It was, no doubt, a foolish idea to do this now, here in the open air in daylight. But nobody came to Nampara Cove so early – he’d bathed here many a time in the early morning and never seen another soul – and he wanted her, here and now, spread on the rock and painted by the sun. Demelza watched him, but she said nothing when he reached to unbutton her drawers from her stays.

“I want to have you,” he murmured. “But say the word and I’ll stop.” His cock was already hard. Her breathing was so fast, her breast heaving with it. He was sure she would not say no, but the other day in the orchard she had hesitated when they had merely kissing, afraid of being caught by Cobbledick or the Paynters or the Martin children. They were more private here, but the choice must be hers.

“Don’t stop,” Demelza said.

He tugged her drawers over her hips as she arched off the rock, and then he drew them down her long legs and discarded them to the side. Demelza seemed to become shy, trying to keep her knees together even as she lay back down on the rock. It was oddly endearing, given their activities over the past two weeks and the enthusiasm she always showed for being touched by him. Ross touched her knees with his fingertips, considering her for a moment.

“Are you ashamed?” he asked her quietly then. Demelza shook her head once, but her lower lip was caught between her lips. Ross hesitated, concerned that she had changed her mind, but then Demelza smiled shyly.

“Not ashamed,” she said. “Just – when you look at me like that, you make me feel…”

“Feel what?” Ross asked, firming his touch on her knees. Demelza shook her head again, but let him coax her legs apart so he could stand between them, his thighs against her knees and her feet still dangling over the edge of the rock. He stroked two fingers up her inner thigh, but stopped short of his ultimate destination. Instead he stroked back down again, up and down the smooth skin of her leg. “Feel what?” he asked her again. Demelza shifted on the rock, as if she wanted to move up towards him. Ross tickled her a little, just inside her knee. 

“I don’t know the word I want,” Demelza said breathlessly. She knew how she felt, bared from the waist down and his eyes hungry as he gazed at her, but if she knew the word for her feelings, she could not think of it now. Not now. “Kiss me, Ross?” she asked him, wanting him close to her again to make the feeling lessen. Ross obeyed her, but not in the way she had expected. Instead of coming back onto the rock to kiss her mouth, he bent over and pressed a kiss to the place where her leg met her hip, just below the bunched fabric of her skirt. Then he kissed her again, a little lower and to one side of the first kiss, and again at the edge of the hair that covered her sex. “ _Ross_ ,” Demelza whispered. 

He had left a mark on her leg last night, on the soft skin of her inner thigh, midway between knee and loins. He had suckled and nibbled and bruised her. It was a little sore there now, when he turned his attention to it, but not unpleasantly so. Nobody could see it there, he had said. Nobody but him. She remembered how he had sounded when he had said that, and how he had looked. Nobody but him, she thought; never, never anybody but him. 

“Does it hurt?” Ross asked, murmuring against her skin. She wriggled at the feeling, too much like a tickle, her skin too sensitive there. He kissed the bruise, easing the sensation, but then he flicked his tongue out and made her wriggle again, but for a different reason.

“No,” she said. “Oh!” 

Ross had slipped a finger between the folds of her quim and into her core, and it was this that had caused Demelza to cry out. She was already wet, more than he’d expected, and when he added a second finger she clenched around him. Ross stroked his thumb across her nub, allowing himself a moment of wonder at the feel of her, the evidence of how she felt for him, how she desired him. It was a heady thing, to feel her so ready for him already, when he had barely touched her and when he had taken her a matter of hours before. Small sounds escaped from between her gritted teeth. She was trying to keep quiet. It was probably wisest so, though he wished he could hear her. She made such delightful sounds, his Demelza, when she was caught up in bodily passions. He added his mouth to aid her pleasure, sucking at her nub, teasing at her with his tongue as he eased a second finger into her core. Demelza bucked up against him, and he hummed against her. Demelza gave a low moan, and then she pressed a fisted hand to her mouth.

“Shh,” Ross said, and pressed a final kiss to the bruise he’d left on her thigh. “Any louder and you’ll have Garrick over here.”

“Judas!” Demelza tried to sit up, turning her head to find her dog, but Garrick was nowhere to be seen and Ross urged her back down onto her back. He couldn’t hide his amusement, but he distracted her by a firm stroke of his thumb across her nub. Demelza bit her lip and shuddered. Her eyes were wide but her gaze unfocused. He made her look like this, and he enjoyed seeing her so. Now, he thought. Now. She was ready, and he was hard. He had been half-hard since he found her on the rock, though at first it had been a distant thing, an idle fancy. Then he had kissed her, and his need for her had overcome him. There was no reason to wait, now. He kissed the bruise on her thigh one last time, and then he took his fingers from her quim.

He fumbled at his breeches, pushed aside his drawers – no time for anything else, the need too urgent – and then he crawled up onto the rock. He kissed her, swallowing the sound she made when he guided his cock slowly into her quim. Demelza arched up against him, taking him inside her in one swift rock of her hips, and then it was his turn to groan, her turn to muffle the sound of it with her mouth.

It was more difficult to find a rhythm here on the unforgiving rock than in his bed. Ross thrust down into her and drew himself up, and Demelza found herself helpless to do anything but take him, to lie back and let him find his pleasure. Not because he was inattentive to hers, but because there was little she could do with the hard rock beneath her. There was no give to it, and on the few times she tried to meet his thrusts, she ended up banging her head or scraping her skin. But it was not hard to lose herself in being taken so. There was a powerful, fierce pleasure in it, in seeing him so frantic above her, his thrusts becoming more deeper and yet more erratic as he grew closer and closer to the edge. He kissed her, open-mouthed and wet, and Demelza tangled her hands in his hair and tried to express herself through the kiss. I love you, she thought; I love you. Whether Ross understood her or not didn’t matter. He pressed his thumb against her nub, rubbing against it in time with his thrusts, and Demelza’s hips stuttered. The coil of pleasure in her loins tightened to breaking point. She could feel her muscles contracting around his cock, and then one last thrust was enough to send her spiralling into a climax.

Ross peaked moments later, and he lay atop her then, still trying to kiss her but obstructed by their shared breathlessness. 

The sun was still rising, but it was fully light now on the beach. Demelza looked up at the blue sky, just as she had earlier. Her heart was overflowing with happiness. Ross was heavy, but not more than she could bear, and it was a comforting, comfortable kind of weight. Somewhere nearby – though not too close, she judged – Garrick was barking. The farm animals would be stirring, needing to be tended. A full day’s work ahead of them both. But while he was contented to lie on the rock with her, she was contented to stay.

“There’s a word,” she said presently, “but I can’t think of it. I know what it means, but I don’t rightly remember the word.”

“Well, what does it mean?” Ross asked. He shifted a little, and his soft cock slipped from her body. Demelza’s breath hitched, and then steadied again. She felt overly sensitive, there where they had joined together. Twice last night, once from his mouth and once from his cock, and now again. She thought she would probably have an ache today, like she’d had that very first morning when he’d taken her for the first time. She didn’t care. It was proof, in her mind, of the things that had happened and the way things had changed. In a week she would have other proof – she would have a ring – but for now she would hold to her aches.

“It’s – it means when you can’t get enough of something,” she tried to explain. “When you never feel like you can _have_ enough of it.”

Ross huffed a laugh against her shoulder. “Insatiable,” he suggested.

“Yes, that. Insatiable.”

Ross smiled, and pressed a chaste kiss to her throat before pushing himself up so he was kneeling astride her, his weight through his knees and heels. Demelza looked glorious, lying on the rock. Her hair was a mess, spread out behind her head on the rock. Her skirt was still bunched up around her waist. She looked thoroughly debauched.

“And in this particular case, does the word apply to me or to you?” he inquired. 

“Both,” said Demelza, with more honesty than tact. Ross chuckled, and Demelza grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling. “But serious,” she said, “do it stay like this, for married folk?”

Ross shrugged the question away impatiently. “I’ve not been married before, so I can hardly say,” he said. The idea made him irritable. There was more to his relationship with Demelza than simply lust, but he knew well enough that most marriages ended up with neither partner desiring the other – even marriages that had begun with desire as a fundamental. His future, their future, was uncertain enough as it was without thinking about an inevitable decline in passion. 

“My mother had seven of us in seven years,” Demelza said, her expression darkening, as if a cloud had moved across the sun. Ross said nothing, for he knew well enough that she didn’t want anything like sympathy or, God forbid, pity. In a moment Demelza pushed away the darkness, and smiled up at him again. “Do ee mind?” she asked him. “I s’pose ladies and gents feel the same as we common folk, but you’d never tell, the way they act.”

“Of course we all feel the same,” said Ross, torn between impatience and amusement. “We all eat, do we not? We all sleep and breathe and go about the acts of life. Why should you assume this,” with a wave of his hand, “should be any different?”

“Oh, well,” said Demelza, but didn’t explain herself further. Ross lifted an eyebrow but let it go. He reached down onto the sand for her drawers, and gave them a shake before giving them to Demelza. He eased off her, off the rock, and tidied himself up while Demelza shimmied into her drawers and settled the skirt of her dress. “I think I do prefer doin’ this indoors,” she said as she got off the rock.

“Oh?”

“I’ve sand in my drawers.” 

Ross huffed a laugh, and Demelza glanced at him sidelong. She had half a mind to take her drawers back off again to go back up to the house, where she could wash herself and change into fresh undergarments. Six months ago – six weeks ago, even – she would not have hesitated. But things had changed, and she was determined that he should not be ashamed of her behaviour. So she kept the drawers on, though she would change at the house anyway. Quite apart from the sand, she felt sticky and damp between her thighs. Always before they had coupled in the bedroom, where a wash stand stood close by to clean herself afterwards. She could bathe in the sea, but the tide was wrong for it. Better to go back to Nampara and wash there.

She collected her stockings and shoes from the edge of the beach, and then Ross took her hand in his as they made their way back to the house. They didn’t speak, but there seemed no need for it, and the silence was not uncomfortable. Demelza hummed a little, quietly, and once or twice Ross squeezed her hand, as if to remind himself that she was with him. In the yard Demelza washed her feet at the pump, to avoid treading sand through the house, and Ross let the chickens out and then went to feed Darkie.

Demelza washed and changed quickly, and returned to the kitchen just as Ross came in from the back door.

“I’ll put the kettle on, an’ porridge, just as soon as I get the fire started,” she promised him, assuming that he was as eager for breakfast as she was. An energetic night and an early morning had made her hungry; her stomach had growled at her, upstairs in the bedroom when she had been washing. There was no sign of Jud or Prudie yet – though she’d heard Jud snoring – so the stove was cold still. It would be some time before it was warm enough to be useful. She thought through the contents of the parlour, wondering what else she could serve for breakfast. There was bread over from yesterday, and preserves, and still a little cold ham. That might do, if Ross was too hungry to wait.

“Never mind that,” said Ross. Demelza was neat and tidy again, as if she hadn’t been laid out on a rock for him to take, not half an hour before. There was no sign of it – or only a small sign, in the way she moved. There was a slight hesitation to her step, as if she had some ache or pain somewhere. He felt a twinge of guilt for causing it, but no doubt it would ease off quickly enough. Demelza was young, healthy and energetic. Nothing harmed her for long. “Come with me,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him back out into the yard. “I’ve found your missing hen.”

“Not alive?” Demelza demanded, looking at him with wide eyes. Ross’s mouth twitched, but he caught his smile before it showed.

“Very much so,” he said. “Come, leave the fire for Prudie.” Demelza gave him a speaking look. Ross knew well enough that Prudie wouldn’t be down before she had to be, but in a week – less than a week – Demelza would be mistress here, and it was high time Prudie started acting like it. She had grown too used to Demelza making up for her laziness, and Demelza had grown too used to doing whatever Prudie left undone. “Come,” he said again, holding a hand out for her. 

The errant chicken was in an unused stall in the stables. It had found itself a cosy pile of straw to nest in, quiet and out of the way, and had evidently stayed there for some time, keeping its eggs warm. The result was a small clutch of chicks. Ross had found them by the chirping, surprisingly loud for such tiny creatures, and had spared only a moment to look at them before going to fetch Demelza who, he had been sure, would be delighted. 

She did not disappoint him. Demelza exclaimed with delight and fell to her knees on the straw, heedless of the mess it would make of her dress. The hen watched her warily, but did not try to peck Demelza when she reached out to touch the soft, downy feathers of the five little chicks. Ross leaned against the stall door and watched her, pleased with her happiness. She had been at Nampara for long enough to see many chicks born, and calves and kittens too, but every time was like the first time for her. He almost envied her for that.

“Oh, look at ‘em,” she cooed. “I never do seem to remember how soft they are, between times.” 

“Not a bad place for her to hatch them,” Ross said. It was warm in the stable, and dry, and only Darkie’s stall was used regularly. The chicken must have wandered in, found itself a comfortable nest, and settled to lay her eggs. Demelza nodded in response, but absently. Her attention was still focused on the chicks. Carefully she eased a hand under one of them, and Ross looked skyward for a moment, exasperated. “She’ll peck you,” he reminded her. “Leave it be.”

“No, she’s friendly, this hen,” said Demelza, lifting the chick with both hands and lifting it to eye level. “Oh, such a little thing,” she said. “Hello, littl’un.” It was cheeping far more loudly than a chick that small had any right to, and Demelza put it back again before it could get too distressed. “We weren’t goin’ to set another hen this year,” she said, twisting around to look at Ross. “But we’ve space, an’ it’ll mean we’ve extra for market, come autumn.” 

Ross was looking at her in an odd way, and Demelza fell silent. He looked almost a stranger somehow, standing at the stall door watching her. She couldn’t tell his thoughts, which was hardly new, but nor could she quite tell what he was feeling. Something had sobered him, some thought of his or action of hers, and it made her self-conscious. She brushed straw from her skirt and stood up, choosing to retreat back into her daily chores rather than stay and try to puzzle out his new mood. 

“I’ll get the stove lit,” she muttered.

“I said to leave it for Prudie.” Ross caught at her arm as she tried to go past him, and gave her a little shake. “Let her do some work for a change. You’ve enough to do.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well, I mind,” he said firmly. “Do as I say, or I’ll put you over my knee and beat you.” Demelza’s mouth curved into a smile. She knew he was teasing her. He’d never yet laid a hand on her in reprimand, even when she deserved it. But the teasing was good, for it meant his odd mood was a passing thing, not a black cloud to mar the whole day. 

“Yes, Ross,” she said, eyes twinkling at him. “I’ll do as you say. But you won’t have tea for an hour or more, an’ your breakfast will be cold, so don’t be complainin’ when you’ve naught but bread and cheese and some ham to eat.”

Ross tweaked her nose. “Impudence,” he said. “Fine, let it a be a cold breakfast. But whatever you choose to serve, you’ll not light that fire before Prudie stirs herself. Is that quite understood?”

“Yes, Ross,” Demelza said again, lifting her face to his to press a quick kiss to his mouth. “I’ll just feed the hens and check for eggs, then I’ll fix ee something.” Ross caught her around the waist and kissed her more thoroughly. Then he let her go and gave her a light slap to her rear that made her squeal. She gave him a look over her shoulder, full of amused indignation, but she said nothing as she left the stables. 

Ross went back to tend to Darkie, and then went on to the oxen. The cows were all out in the fields at this time of year, and Jack Cobbledick would milk them when he arrived for work, if Jud didn’t do it before then. The chickens were scattered across the yard, scratching about in the dirt. They were, by and large, Demelza’s business, and she managed her flock well, just as she managed the household well. He had every confidence that she would be as hard-working and dutiful a wife as she had been a servant.

And he – well, he would try to be a good husband, though he didn’t love her as she loved him. For she did love him, that much was obvious to Ross now that his eyes had been opened. Ever since she had come to Nampara she had shown him a clear loyalty, devotion even, but as she had grown and developed, so had her feelings. He didn’t want to hurt Demelza. He hoped he wouldn’t. He cared for her, held great affection for her, but when he thought of love he still thought of Elizabeth, try though he might to pull himself away. He was determined to be as good a husband as he could be to Demelza, regardless. She deserved his best efforts, at the very least, whether he loved her or not. 

Raised voices in the kitchen made Ross shake off his introspection and return to the house. He expected Jud and Prudie, but he hadn’t even reached the open kitchen door before he realised that it was Jud and Demelza who were arguing. It took much for Demelza to raise her voice, and Ross hastened to the kitchen to see what was going on. He stepped into the doorway and paused there to survey the scene. Neither Demelza nor Jud noticed him, which proved fortunate, for it meant that Ross heard Jud address Demelza in terms that were not only disrespectful, but also appallingly crude.

“Jud!” he rapped out. Jud, startled, dropped the jar of preserves he was holding. It smashed to the floor, scattering sticky jam and pottery all across the clean flagstones. Demelza said nothing, but her lips were pressed into a thin line and she glared at Jud as though she would like to do more than glare. So would Ross, come to that. Jud could do with a good beating. Ross had a mind to do it, except that he’d never yet decided if a thrashing would help or hinder his efforts to force Jud into better behaviour. It was still useful as a threat, however.

“If I ever hear you speak of Demelza in such terms again,” he said, “I’ll take you out to the yard and beat you until you can’t sit for a month.” He meant to speak coolly, but he found his voice was shaking a little from his anger. Demelza was looking at him now, her eyes wide, but still she said nothing. It was the jar of preserves, Ross supposed, that had caused an argument. Presumably Jud had helped himself to it without so much as a by your leave, and Demelza had objected. Ross suspected that several weeks of bad feeling on Jud’s part had culminated in his foul-mouthed outburst, but he was hardly inclined to be forgiving.

“I won’t tell you again,” Ross said, when Jud made no reply. “Demelza is to be my wife and you’ll obey her as you do me, or you can pack your bags and find employment elsewhere.”

“T’idn’t right,” Jud muttered. “T’idn’t proper!” But he subsided again under Ross’s wrathful gaze.

Prudie had arrived, hovering in the inner doorway and looking from Ross to Jud and back again. She pursed her lips, just as Demelza had. Strange, Ross thought, how they shared a mannerism when they were such very different people. 

“Prudie,” he said, “clean this mess up. And get a fire going. Bring tea to the parlour when it’s ready. And a cold breakfast – Demelza will tell you what we want.”

“Yes, Mister Ross,” said Prudie, with unaccustomed meekness. 

“I won’t tell you again, Jud,” Ross said once more, stepping into the kitchen. “Let this be the last time I hear such things from you.” He went to Demelza. She was silent and still, drawn up to her full height, her hand trembling a little and her lips still pursed, but no other outward sign showed how angry she had been, and must surely still be. It wasn’t like Demelza to raise her voice, to react outwardly to Jud’s grumbling or his abuse. He couldn’t think why she had reacted so now, but it didn’t matter. It had happened, and a good thing that Ross had been nearby, or he might never have heard how Jud was speaking to Demelza when he thought that Ross was nowhere near.

“Join me in the parlour when you’ve seen to this,” he said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. It was a deliberate move, to remind Jud that Ross cared for Demelza and valued her. Then he left the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him to hear any further problems.

Demelza quietly told Prudie what she should fetch for breakfast. It felt awkward and wrong, to be giving Prudie what was so clearly an order. But Ross had made her position clear not only to Jud, but to Prudie and even to Demelza herself. Obey her as you do me, he’d said. He had drawn a line in the sand and crossed it, and ordered his household to cross it with him. Demelza could do nothing but obey him, and try to live up to his expectations.

At least Prudie seemed to have firmly decided that she would support Demelza. She listened to Demelza without comment, and then, when she went to start the fire, she began to harangue Jud in a way that made it quite plain that she had decided to accept the situation, and accept Demelza as her mistress rather than her inferior. Demelza left them to their quarrelling, and went to Ross in the parlour.

Ross was sitting at the table, a newspaper spread in front of him. He glanced up when Demelza came in, but said nothing. She went to the bench seat in front of the fireplace and took up her sewing. The argument in the kitchen ceased; Jud had gone out. It was too much to hope that he had gone to do his chores, but at least he had left Prudie to her work.

“I must get this dress finished,” Demelza said into the silence. “I thought to do somethin’ simple for supper, an’ spend time sewin’ instead of cookin’.”

“I’ve no objection to that,” said Ross. “I’m going over to the mine today. I’ll be there all day, if you can manage something for my dinner.”

“Of course.” Demelza bent her head over the seam she was sewing. She heard the scrape of a chair across the floor as Ross rose, but she kept her eyes down until his shadow fell across her. Then she looked up to find him scrutinising her, as if he was looking for something. She felt as though he was trying to measure her up, to weigh her worth in some way. Demelza was half-afraid of what he would decide, but she met his gaze evenly. 

“Don’t let him speak to you like that again,” was all Ross said, when eventually he spoke. He bent and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then returned to his newspaper and said not another word until Prudie arrived with breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) Ross’s meeting with Francis follows book canon, and takes place before the marriage, unlike the show canon where it takes place afterwards.  
> 2) Jim and Jinny Carter have several children in the novels. The first is Benjamin Ross, Benjy Ross for short, for whom Ross is godfather. The child who never knows her father is Katie Carter. The show isn’t clear on which child they have erased, but on the basis of later books I have kept Benjy Ross as Jim and Jinny’s firstborn (only) child.


	6. Chapter 6

Demelza did not go to the christening on Thursday. Ross tried to persuade her, but she was resolute and he could see that further urging would only make her uncomfortable.

“If it’d been another week,” she said to him that morning, as he was preparing to leave, “then I’d come if you wanted. But they won’t know what to make of me just yet, an’ it wouldn’t be fair to Jinny. Besides, I’ve too much to do here.” Nonsense, Ross thought, but outwardly he merely shrugged his shoulders and said that of course she needn’t come if she did not wish. 

So he went to the christening alone, and found that his well of guilt and self-recrimination ran dry, at least temporarily, at the sight of the happiness displayed by Jinny and her parents at the christening of a healthy baby boy. As Demelza had reminded him so often, Jim was alive and might still return to his family. Jinny was as contented as she could be, and her newborn son, Benjamin Ross Carter, seemed to be thriving. Ross must try to do likewise.

He didn’t linger afterwards. Jinny and Mrs Zacky would have welcomed him, but Zacky was going back to work, and Ross claimed work of his own. It was true enough, there was never any lack of work on a farm, though it wasn’t his only reason for going. Having found his bitterness lessening, he wanted to preserve it by taking his leave of Jinny and Benjy Ross before her circumstances brought it back to him. So he walked with Zacky to Wheal Leisure, discussing the latest ore samples and the workings of the mine. They lingered at the head of the mine for a while, finishing their conversation, and then Ross made to leave.

“Ross,” said Zacky then, reaching out to stop him. “It’s Monday, in’t it? The weddin’?”

“Yes,” Ross nodded. “Monday morning.”

He could not seem to decide if the ceremony had seemed to come far more quickly than it should, or more slowly. So much had happened in the space of two weeks. Two weeks before, he woken alone in his bed as she crept from his room. He had wanted her all that morning, and most of the afternoon, but she had been like a ghost in the house, her presence and influence on Nampara felt at every turn but never seen. Two weeks since he had chased after her and brought her back home as his bride-to-be. He didn’t regret his choice. No matter what others thought of him for it, marrying Demelza meant Ross could look himself in the mirror and not flinch. There would be obstacles to overcome, no doubt, and society might well shun him for it, but he would keep his self-respect. 

“Do ee have witnesses?” Zacky asked. It was clear he wanted to offer himself, if a witness was needed, and Ross would dearly like to ask him. Zacky was one of his oldest friends, and certainly a more desirable witness than Jud. But he couldn’t ask Zacky to be a witness and not ask Francis, or at least offer Francis the opportunity. It would be a snub, one that would likely cast Ross further into disgrace among the Trenwith Poldarks.

“Jud and Prudie will serve,” he said. “Believe me, Zacky, I’d rather have you there – but my cousin wouldn’t take it well.” He scratched at his cheek and grimaced. “I know what their thoughts on my marriage will be. I don’t want a quarrel with them.”

“No, that’s right enough,” said Zacky peaceably, clearly not offended in the slightest. “No good ever come from families fallin’ out.”

They parted then, Zacky to go underground and Ross to Nampara. Prudie was in the farmyard plucking a chicken, but she left off her task and fetched him a drink with a minimum of complaining. Demelza was cleaning the library, Prudie told him, and Ross drained his glass and then went in search of his betrothed. He heard her before he saw her, for she was humming and singing to herself as she cleaned. The library door was open, and he stopped in the doorway to look at her. The sleeves of her shift had been rolled up above her elbows. Her hair was tied back and up with a long strip of cloth. She looked less the desirable siren and more the capable maid, but his affection for her was unchanged. He could not yet merge the two Demelzas in his mind, but he cared for them both.

Demelza had been dusting, but she had heard his footstep in the hall and she greeted him with a warm smile.

“All went well?” she asked. She was glad he had not come ten minutes earlier, when she had been trying to play the spinet. She had only pressed the keys lightly, taking great care that she should not bring Prudie to see what she was doing, but the sounds she had coaxed from the old instrument had delighted her. Demelza longed for the ability to play it properly. She loved to sing and she enjoyed music, and to play an instrument seemed to her to be a wondrous thing. But she was glad he had not come then. Though things had changed between them, she could not forget his anger, two weeks before when he had caught her taking liberties with things she had found in this room. She was not yet his wife; she was not sure that playing the spinet would not be looked on as another liberty.

“Nobody dropped the child, so I suppose so,” said Ross dryly. Demelza hummed her mirth, offering him another smile before she turned away to continue dusting the shelves. The library had always been her favourite place to clean, though it was harder than almost anywhere else in the house. There were so many things here, scattered about as if they had no proper place. Demelza had to lift each item to dust beneath it, and then carefully replace it in the same position. It took time to do it properly, so that Ross should not come in to find his library not as he had left it. Prudie was never so careful, though she could dust thoroughly when she had a mind to, so Demelza had taken this as her special task long ago. It had become, in some way that she would not have been able to explain, a means of being close to Ross. He did some of his work in the parlour, but most of it was done in here, and the library was used as mine office as well. By cleaning in here – and, indeed, by coming in here on rainy afternoons when nobody was about and she could do no work on the farm – she had felt as though she could become closer to him.

She had never expected to become so close, to be his intended wife, to share his bed. But she had loved him for so long, and she had taken anything she could have, any scrap of information or affection that he gave her. The ritual of cleaning the library had become part of that. And, on rainy days when she’d been unable to go out and could slip away from kitchen duties, the library was where she had gone. She had spent hours here, touching the wonderful and strange things, trying to put her meagre learning to the test with the books and papers, and touching the spinet with her lightest touch.

“The spinet is open,” Ross said then, coming a little further into the room. Demelza turned, wide-eyed, and saw Ross at the instrument, his hand brushing over the keys but not pressing down to sound a note. “Were you dusting it, or playing?” 

Demelza couldn’t read his tone of voice, but she could not lie in answer to a direct question. 

“I were – I _was_ dusting, an’ then I tried to play,” she admitted in a low voice. Then, in a rush, she went on. “I know I didn’t ought to, I never meant to take liberties.”

“Demelza.” Ross spoke no other words, but it was enough to make her subside. Her hands were twisting together a little, and her eyes were lowered, as if she expected a reprimand. Well, he thought, she had good reason to expect one, after he’d lashed out at her a fortnight before for wearing his mother’s dress. But things had changed now, and what was his would also be hers. He reached out a hand for her, and she looked up at him and slowly took a step closer so she could put her hand in his. Ross gently pulled her closer, until she was standing beside him at the spinet.

“Show me,” he said.

Demelza was hesitant, but Ross gave her little choice. He manoeuvred her onto the stool that sat before the spinet, and then he stood behind her with a hand resting lightly on her shoulder. It was clear there would be no escape, no evading his request. Demelza bit her lip for a moment. She had sung and hummed in front of Ross before, but this felt different. It was almost a performance, so unlike the idle singing of a song while working. She would much rather not do it, but she knew she would not be able to change his mind. So she took a breath and then began to play the tune she had been trying to play earlier. It was a simple melody, one of her favourite songs, but she played it slowly and falteringly, striking the wrong notes more often than she wished – at least at first, when she felt so keenly Ross’s touch on her shoulder and his eyes watching her hands. Then she became a little easier, and repeated the refrain again with fewer mistakes. When she had finished, she folded her hands together in her lap and waited for Ross’s reaction.

He said nothing at first. It had been strange to see the spinet open, and strange to hear it played. Ross doubted anybody had touched the instrument since he had joined the army. It had been his mother’s spinet; she had been musical, and most of his scattered memories of her involved her playing this instrument, though she had never sung except in church. After her death, Ross remembered, his father had closed the spinet lid and proceeded to forget all about it. Verity had played it once or twice, on the rare occasions when she had come to visit. Usually he had gone to Trenwith; Joshua Poldark had not encouraged visitors.

But despite the stirring of old memories, he was pleased to see Demelza taking an interest in it, and pleased by the sounds she produced. Her singing was good, and he could see no reason why she might not become reasonably accomplished with the spinet if she wanted. A few lessons would help, no doubt, but that would have to wait until they struck copper at Wheal Leisure. 

“Play whenever you like,” he said at last. “There’s some music around here somewhere. I’ll try to find it for you.” In one of the chests, most likely. That was where all his mother’s belongings were – those that had been kept. He would look later. Demelza could not read sheet music, of course, but no doubt there would be some song that she knew, and she could teach herself the notes from that.

“Oh, Ross,” Demelza said softly. “You’re that kind to me.” There was something in her voice that made Ross uncomfortable, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. He took his hand from her shoulder and took a step backwards, away from her.

“Nonsense,” he said.

“T’isn’t nonsense,” Demelza protested, twisting on the stool to look up at him. Her eyebrows were drawn together, her eyes shimmering a little, as if she had unshed tears that were catching the light. “’Tis more than I deserve – far, far more!” There _were_ tears in her eyes, Ross realised. She seemed overcome with emotion, and it was so unlike her that he had to step close again, to take her hands and pull her upright and into his arms.

“Hush, now,” he said, as firmly as he could manage. Demelza’s head rested in the curve of his neck and shoulder. He circled her waist with his arms, holding her close. “Will it make you happy, to play?” he asked her. Demelza nodded but said nothing. “Then play. The spinet is yours.” Demelza inhaled deeply, and her whole body seemed to shiver for a moment, and then she lifted her head and smiled at him. It was one of her most brilliant smiles, that lit up her whole face and made her eyes dance. She said nothing, but there was no need for words. Ross could see well enough how happy she was, and how grateful. Her tears had disappeared, though there was a wet streak down one cheek that told him that one tear, at least, had fallen. How he hated to see her cry. And every time he had seen her cry, all within the past fortnight, it had been his fault. At least this time it was from happiness that she wept, not from hurt.

Ross kissed her forehead and then released her.

“I must get to work,” he said. “Jack Cobbledick thinks one of the cows is sickening with something. I may be late for dinner, but don’t wait for me.”

He half-expected to find her at the spinet later, when he came in for his dinner and then again for supper. Indeed, he would not have been entirely surprised to discover that Demelza had neglected her other tasks in favour of music. He returned to the house that evening with a slight apprehension, lest he should find himself served with one of Prudie’s suppers. But he need not have worried, for Demelza had provided a meal that was even more carefully prepared than usual. It seemed a way for her to express her gratitude, and Ross, never keen to accept words of thanks for such trifles, was pleased to treat it as such. Afterwards they sat in the parlour together, Ross working at his accounts and Demelza nearer the fire with her sewing. It was a quiet, comfortable evening. Neither of them spoke much, but it was a companionable silence.

They worked until Ross had to get up to light more candles, the hour too late for either of them to work without additional light. Demelza had been discreetly yawning for some time, but her dress was still not finished and she was determined that it should be by the end of Saturday, that she might wash and press it before Monday and the wedding ceremony. She had used all her spare time, these past two days, to work on the dress and the new petticoat for beneath. Prudie had helped in that; in the past two days Demelza had seen Prudie accept work with more grace than ever before. It was as if Prudie had decided that if Demelza must be her mistress, then she was at least better than a genteel lady who had no idea how to scrub a pot so it shined. With Prudie’s assistance, Demelza had managed to free time, both this day and yesterday, to work on her frock. It was nearly finished now, lacking only another few hours’ work. The hem had been tacked, and needed firm sewing, and the cuffs also. Then it would be completed. A new dress for a new Demelza, she thought to herself with a happiness that seemed to fill her whole body, mind and heart and bones.

Still, the extra candles made her realise how late it was. Her yawns had become more frequent, and her shoulders ached a little from bending over to see her stitches more closely. Demelza put the needle safely into her pincushion, put the dress aside, and stretched her arms to ease her aching shoulders. Ross finished lighting the last candelabra and glanced over at her inquiringly.

“I must get to bed,” Demelza said apologetically. “Or I’ll fall off my chair.” Ross smiled a little, and returned to his seat at the table. 

“Go on, then,” he said. “I’ve still plenty to do this evening.” There was a hint of tension in his expression, a tightness to his mouth and around his eyes. It was not because of her, Demelza was certain. Ross had spoken earlier about the need for more gunpowder. More blasting must happen at Wheal Leisure, and gunpowder was expensive. “Don’t wait for me,” Ross instructed. “Go up and sleep.” He managed another smile, but it did not reach his eyes.

“Do you need aught before I go?” Demelza asked, but he shook his head. Demelza made sure her work basket was tidy, and then glanced in at the kitchen to see that all was well. The stove had been banked, Garrick was asleep close by the warmth, and the kitchen was clean enough. Satisfied, Demelza went up to bed.

She was asleep long before Ross ascended the stairs to join her. He tried to be quiet, so that he might not disturb her, but he mistook his step and trod on the one floorboard in the room that creaked. He grimaced to himself as Demelza’s head lifted off the pillow.

“Do ee need me, sir?” she asked, her voice so slurred that it was clear she was almost entirely asleep, pulled only a little into the waking world. Ross moved off the offending floorboard and sat down to take off his boots.

“Go back to sleep, Demelza,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.” But Demelza rose from the bed, scarcely decent in his old shirt, and she came to kneel before him. Ross watched her, curious, but all Demelza did was to remove his boots, first one and then the other. Then she kneeled forward and rested her head on his knee, yawning against his breeches. Ross stroked her hair and let her be for a moment. The moment lengthened. Demelza’s breathing evened out into the slow, peaceful rhythm of sleep. Ross kept stroking her hair, feeling almost as if she was a wild creature that had decided to trust him. Certainly she was a creature of far more complexity than he had ever supposed when he had brought her here to work and live. There was a wildness to her, certainly. And she had laid her happiness in his hands. A wild creature’s trust, indeed.

“Come,” Ross said at last, nudging her head up with his knee. “Back into bed. I can undress myself, you know.”

“Mm,” Demelza murmured, waking enough to lift her head but not quite enough to open her eyes properly. “But boots is hard.” She let him help her up but then leaned against him and began to unfasten the buttons of his waistcoat. Ross felt a surge of fondness for her. Dear Demelza, so quick to see to his needs and so quick to forget her own.

“Bed,” he ordered her. “Go of your own accord or I’ll carry you there.” He felt a different wave of emotion then, not of fondness but of desire. The idea of carrying her into his bed and laying her out there was a pleasant one. Not tonight, he thought, not when she’s so tired. Another night. Monday, perhaps. It would be their wedding night on Monday. Three more days and three more nights, and then only a few hours of the Monday before they would be joined together in matrimony. So close, now. And still he looked upon it with both anticipation and apprehension. Her doubts sometimes fed his own, and only time would tell if either of them had any true cause for concern.

She obeyed him this time. By the time Ross had undressed and donned his night shirt, Demelza was fast asleep again. He smiled to see that she was clutching her pillow tight with one hand, when her whole body was otherwise completely relaxed and at ease. He blew out the candles, settled down beside her, and replaced her pillow with his own hand. Demelza’s fingers curled around his but otherwise she did not stir, and Ross was asleep within minutes.

Demelza finished her wedding dress on Saturday afternoon. That was how she thought of it, though she would use the dress as an ordinary work dress after the ceremony itself. The material was plain and sturdy, and she had made it up in the same manner as the two ready-made dresses that Ross had purchased for her. Prudie had helped her to work out a pattern, and now Demelza called her away from the laundry and up to Ross’s bedroom to make sure the finished dress met with her approval.

“Ais, that’s fitty,” Prudie said, inspecting Demelza with her head tilted to one side and one eye narrowed slightly. “Well stitched. You’ve not done badly, them tucks is hard to do. Turn about, let me see the back.” Demelza turned to let Prudie check the waist at the back, and the shoulder seams. “Ais,” Prudie said again. “’Tis proper fitty. An’ the petticoat?” 

“That’s done,” Demelza nodded, lifting her skirt to show the petticoat beneath. “I wish I’d new stockings, too,” she confessed then, frowning down at her old, darned stockings. They were neatly mended where mending had been needed, with plenty of wear left in them. But still Demelza wished she had new ones, to go with the new frock and petticoat. It was a foolish wish, and she chastised herself for it. A fine new dress, and a good petticoat, were luxury enough and more than she’d expected. Before Prudie had brought her the material and told her that Ross had agreed she should have it, Demelza had had no thought but to be married in one of her two yellow striped dresses. She had no other clothes, after all. She might wish for new stockings, but she would not let it overcome her gratefulness for what she had.

“I bin knittin’ you some,” said Prudie unexpectedly. Demelza let her skirt fall back into place and looked at Prudie in astonishment. Prudie sniffed and brushed something from Demelza’s sleeve. “They’s not done yet,” she said. “But I reckon they’ll be right an’ ready for Monday.”

“You didn’t have to,” Demelza said. She was touched by the gesture; Prudie had rarely done such a kind thing for her before. Kindness, unselfishness, was not a normal part of Prudie’s character. It took some extraordinary cause to move her to a kind action, an action performed with no thought for her own comfort. Almost everything she had ever done for Demelza – teaching her, clothing her – had been done because Ross had ordered it. Nobody had ordered Prudie to knit new stockings for Demelza, and Demelza understood the meaning behind it, as she had understood on Tuesday morning when Prudie had accepted her orders without question or complaint. She could not offer thanks, for Prudie would bridle under her gratitude, but she resolved to find some way to repay the kindness.

“Take it off an’ I’ll wash it,” Prudie said, shrugging her shoulders and taking a step backwards, as if physical distance could ward off any thanks that might come her way. “There’s time to wash an’ press it, afore Monday.”

Demelza removed her new dress and petticoat and gave them to Prudie, who took them and then went back downstairs. Demelza picked her yellow work dress from the bed, where she had laid it while trying on the new gown, but she did not hurry to put it on. There was work waiting for her, of course, for there was no end of work in the house and on the farm. She had supper to prepare yet, and no idea if Ross would be late or early tonight. He had gone to the mine, and usually he came up with the core change at eight, but sometimes he lingered there after, talking with Mr Henshawe or Zacky Martin, or any of the other miners who he knew and counted as friends. He hadn’t said anything to Demelza about wanting supper late, but sometimes he was late with no warning, and then Demelza was left scrambling to try to keep everything warm without overcooking things.

Ross always apologised when that happened. He had always made a point of it, ever since Demelza had taken over the greater part of the cooking for the household. He had always been the kindest of masters to her – rigid in his expectations, but still seeing her as a living, breathing creature. No other master was like that, Demelza knew that well enough. If she’d stayed in Illugan and somehow gained a place as a scullery maid at the nearest grand house there, she would most likely have been treated as little more than an animated piece of furniture. Necessary for the running of the house, but wholly unimportant to the gentry who lived there.

Well, none of that mattered. She had left Illugan and come to Nampara, and Ross had become the centre of her existence, her employer and teacher. Now he would be her husband. Delight bubbled up in Demelza’s throat and spilled out in a laugh, and she hugged herself from sheer happiness. Monday was close now, just two more nights to go. Her dress was finished, a beautiful new dress in such a lovely shade of red. She had a petticoat, and new stockings, and on Monday morning she would go out and gather flowers for a bouquet. She would have a bath tomorrow night, she decided. Clean from the skin out, ready to become Demelza Poldark.

She would be so proud to bear his name. So very proud.

Ross was not late back from Wheal Leisure that evening. He arrived home not long after eight, physically wearied from hard work but satisfied from it. They had not yet struck a lode of copper good enough to bring return on the capital investment into the mine, but there was a little copper being raised even so, and Ross had always found a satisfaction in manual work. It was a satisfaction that none of his own class seemed to understand, though he thought more of them should try it. Francis, he thought wryly as he approached Nampara, might benefit greatly from the kind of labour that had seen Ross through the darkest days after his return from the army.

Demelza was in her garden. She was frowning over one of her plants, bent almost double with her hand on the soil, but when she heard him approach she straightened and smiled a warm, welcoming smile. She always, or almost always, brightened at the sight of him, though Ross had only recently realised it. He had not allowed himself to see how much she trusted him, or the depths of her feelings for him. To have acknowledged it would have been dangerous, for them both. Now it was out in the open, and there was no longer any reason to ignore how she lit up when she saw him. No reason except the lingering discomfort of knowing that she loved him, and that he did not love her in the same way. 

“Supper’s nearly ready,” Demelza said, brushing her hands together and then wiping them on her apron. “I weren’t sure – I _wasn’t_ sure when you’d be back, but it won’t take ten minutes to finish.” Ross’s mouth twitched into a smile, almost against his will. She was so determined to improve her grammar, her language, and whenever she caught herself in a mistake she frowned a little, just a small crease of her brows. It was strangely endearing. Demelza saw his smile and looked as though she would like to say something, but then she shook her head a little and shrugged her shoulders, as if to express that she did not wish to be embarrassed by her mistakes. Since Ross had not intended to embarrass her, he didn’t comment on her self-correction.

“I must wash first, so don’t hurry,” he said. “I’ve torn my shirt, just across the seam. I’ll bring it back down with me so you can mend it.”

“I’ll do it tonight,” said Demelza agreeably. Ross was about to object, for he knew she was anxious to finish her dress, but she spoke again before he could do more than open his mouth. “I finished my frock this afternoon,” she explained. “So I’ve plenty of time for catchin’ up with the mending.”

Ross went close to her then, and caught her waist between his hands. He took great pleasure in holding her so, his hands almost large enough to wrap around her waist entirely. A slender woman, held in his grasp and staying there of her own volition, her eyes twinkling up at him and her smile a strange mixture of coyness and suggestiveness. His Demelza. He kissed her, chastely but lingeringly. She lifted a hand to his cheek, but then let it fall again. She had dirt on her hand still, he recollected absently, no matter how she’d tried to wipe it off with her apron. He didn’t care if she got soil on him. His skin was coated in mine dirt anyway. He pulled her closer, flush against him, so he could feel the rhythm of her breathing even through the clothes they wore. It was as exciting as the first time. A fortnight’s carnal knowledge of her had not dulled the sensations of holding her close and kissing her.

Demelza gave a small, breathy sound, almost a sigh. He was still learning all the sounds she made in her pleasure – even those she made from merely a kiss – and this was a new sound. He kissed her for a moment longer, and then he rested his forehead against hers.

“Ross,” she murmured, her lips still so close to his that he could feel them moving. “Your supper. It’ll be overdone, an’ Jud an’ Prudie will be waitin’ too.”

“Neither of them will come to harm from it,” Ross said, but he accepted the point and let his hands fall from her waist. “Has Jud been behaving himself?” he asked, turning towards the house as Demelza bent to retrieve her gardening tools.

“Yes, Ross,” she said. It was true enough, for though Jud was still sullen and full of grumbles, he had not spoken to her as he had the other morning. He did not quite seem to know how to treat her, now that Ross had made it clear to him that he must regard Demelza as his mistress or leave Nampara. Jud had avoided Demelza for the rest of that day, and the following days too. Yesterday, Friday, he had been a little more in evidence about the house, but he had so far managed to avoid speaking to Demelza directly, as if by doing so he could avoid acknowledging that she had been taken from her place as his inferior and been elevated into being his superior. 

“Prudie’s been knitting me new stockings,” she added, to distract Ross from further inquiring about Jud’s behaviour. “To go with my dress. I never had so many new things all at once.” She had never had new clothes at all until she had come to Nampara, in fact. All her clothes before had been second-hand at best, and more often fourth- or fifth-hand, passed down from family to family until there was no use at all left in them. She had never had a new dress, or new undergarments, or new shoes. Even here, at Nampara, it was implicitly understood that a new piece of clothing must last her for as long as possible. To have a new frock, and a petticoat, and stockings, and the three handkerchiefs from Jinny, felt like the height of luxury. 

“You must tell me if you want anything else,” Ross said, taking her tools from her and leading the way into the house.

“Why,” said Demelza, surprised, “what else do I need? My dress an’ petticoat is done, an’ I’ve clean underclothes for Monday.” Ross glanced at her, his expression almost indecipherable. Demelza felt instinctively that she had mistaken his meaning somehow, that she had drawn his disapproval, but she could not see how. What more did she need? she wondered. She could not think of anything that she lacked. 

“Anything at all,” he clarified. “Not merely for Monday. If you need new things, you must tell me.” They had paused in the hallway, and now he dropped her tools onto a nearby table and turned to face her fully. Demelza watched him, still not sure what he meant. “Cloth for more clothes,” Ross suggested. “You need a nightgown, do you not?”

“I like wearing your old shirt,” Demelza said, and blushed at the intent look he gave her.

“Yes,” he said, voice low and rasping, the way he sounded sometimes when they were in bed together. “I like that too.”

He proved it later that evening. Demelza was later to retire than Ross was, busy in the kitchen longer than she intended, and when she came into the bedroom Ross was already in bed, one arm behind his head. He was bare-chested, his night gown still slung across the end of the bed, and the blankets were pulled up barely enough for modesty. The candlelight painted golden stripes across his skin. It made Demelza’s breath catch in her throat as she stood in the doorway, and then she hurried to prepare for bed, eager to join him. She stripped quickly and donned her shirt, and then had to pause before the dressing table to comb her hair.

Ross rose and came to stand behind her. “Let me,” he said. He took the comb from her hand and gently pressed her down onto the stool. He could see her watching him in the mirror, but he concentrated on working the comb through her tangled curls. He worked steadily and silently, very aware of how her breast heaved and how her breath hitched whenever he touched her, fingertips at her scalp or thumb brushing against her neck as he combed her hair into order. Almost a waste of time, he thought idly, for it would soon grow tangled again, especially in activity. And tonight would not be a night for slipping quickly and quietly into sleep. The very air was charged with anticipation. He wanted her, and he knew that she wanted him, too. He knew the signs of her desire well enough by now to know that she was caught in the same fire as he, this night.

“You said earlier that I should tell you if I want anythin’,” Demelza said into the silence, her voice husky.

“I did,” Ross agreed. He set aside the comb, her hair untangled, and rested his hands on her shoulders. He wondered what she would ask for. He wondered why she chose now to ask for it. Her nightgown – his old shirt – was too wide at the collar for her. It had slipped off one shoulder, letting him feel bare skin beneath his hand. He traced the line of her collarbone with his fingertips, then went lower, down to cover her left breast with his hand, her heartbeat thumping beneath his palm. Her nipple lay between two fingers, growing harder without more stimulation than the barest brush of skin against skin. He looked at her in the mirror and found her watching him still. Demelza’s eyes seemed dark in the candlelit room, and her lips were parted. Ross felt half-drunk with desire. 

“What do you want?” he prompted. 

“I want you to take me to bed, Ross.”

She said it so simply, with no affectation or shame. Ross had to close his eyes for a moment, and take a measured breath to maintain some semblance of self-control. A simple want, expressed in that low voice. She sat there on the stool, wearing his shirt, asking him to take her to bed. And there was nothing stopping it, there was no reason to hold back. He could, as he had thought the other night, sweep her into his arms and carry her the few steps to the bed, lay her down there and strip her of the shirt. He knew her naked body intimately now. It would not be like the first night, when he had been so consumed with a need to _see_ her that he had risen to light another candle. He knew her curves and lines, he knew how her skin looked under a single flickering candle and under glorious morning sun.

Nobody else would know these things. They would not know how she looked, how she sounded or how she felt, beneath him or above. These things were for him alone. 

“Gladly,” he said at last. “And as often as you like.”

Demelza hardly knew how he managed it, but in a few moments he had swung her up off the stool and into his arms. He took her across the room to the bed and laid her down as carefully as if she were made of glass. Demelza might have laughed at it, but for the look in his eyes and her own aching need to be touched. How different we are now to that first time, she thought; outside this room I’m still trying to find my place, but here I’m sure; here I know he wants me.

He was naked, and Demelza let herself look at him, all of him. He was tall and lean, his chest and arms generously covered with hair, tanned to the waist but pale below. His cock was not quite hard, but growing erect, framed by the wiry hair that grew around the base of it. Demelza had brought him to a peak with her hand, the other night, exploring the feel of his cock, stroking it as he showed her he liked. She had liked it; it had made her feel proud, to know she could give him the kind of pleasure he gave her when he used his fingers on her sex. 

Ross crawled onto the bed and knelt astride her, kissing her briefly before pulling away to remove her night shirt. Demelza helped, lifting up her arms so he could tug the garment over her head. Then she used the closeness to kiss his chest just above the breastbone, and then his nipple. She nipped at it with her teeth and Ross made a sound, a groan. He brought his hand to tangle in her hair.

“Minx,” he said, but he sounded affectionate, and Demelza smiled at him. 

“I be followin’ your lead,” she said. “You’ve shown me so many things, s’only fair I should try some of ‘em on you.”

“Did you have something in mind?” Ross asked, amused by her teasing words. Demelza wriggled a little underneath him, making her breasts move delightfully and distractingly. Ross muttered a curse and grasped hold of her wrists. “Be still,” he said, “or I’ll choose my own way tonight.”

“That’d be nice, too,” said Demelza. She arched up a little, hips lifting against him. Ross bent over and kissed her again, fierce and deep, possessing her mouth. Demelza responded beautifully, as passionate as he, just as fierce in her own way. His hands moved from her wrists, touching her wherever he could, legs, body, shoulders, intent on no particular action other than simply feeling her, skin against skin. Demelza wrapped her arms around him, a hand at the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. Ross felt as though he would like to try to blend them together, to press so close to her that they began to be of one flesh truly. They parted only to breathe. Ross nipped at Demelza’s lower lip and then repeated himself. 

“You had something in mind, Demelza?”

“I…well, Ross,” said Demelza, with a sudden shyness that was unusual for her in their lovemaking. “Well, Ross…you know I like it when you put your mouth…there.”

“Where?” he teased her. “Here?” He kissed her breast and suckled the nipple into hardness. Demelza shuddered beneath him. “Or here?” he suggested, moving down to the slight softness of her belly and scraping his teeth against her skin. Another shudder, and a gasp. Her hand was still in his hair, clutching tight enough to be painful, but Ross didn’t care. 

“Ross,” Demelza complained. “Don’t tease me.”

“Oh, you meant _here_ ,” said Ross as he shifted down the bed a little. He bent over, hands coaxing her thighs apart – not that she needed much coaxing – and blew gently on her wet quim. Her hips lifted a little, a silent plea for something more, and Ross smiled but obeyed, licking across the outer lips of and then dipping in to taste her more fully. Demelza moaned and shuddered, and Ross caught at her hips and held her still. He swirled his tongue around her nub briefly, then rubbed his nose against it as he licked into her core. Then he replaced his tongue with fingers as he latched onto the nub with his mouth, swirling and stroking it with his tongue until she was so close to a peak that she begged him to finish it. Then he suckled at it, hard, and Demelza cried out and stiffened, her limbs shaking with the strength of her climax. He nursed her through it, gentling his touch until at last she was only shaking a very little, a faint trembling through her body, her breast heaving as she gulped in air. Then he wiped his face with the edge of the sheet and sat back on his heels to look at her.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, feeling anything but. “I seem to have distracted you. You were trying to say something?”

Demelza’s sated look turned into a mild glare, and she reached out to give him a gentle swat to the thigh. 

“Not sure I can remember it now,” she said. She felt heavy and sluggish, though she knew that in a few moments she would begin to recover. “You’ve drove it clean out of my head,” she told him. Ross laughed and lay down beside her, on his side so that he was facing her. Demelza turned her head to him, but felt still too boneless to want to move more than that. She lifted a hand, slow and lazy, and traced her fingers along the line of his scar. “How’d it happen?” she asked. It was a thing she had often wondered about. All Prudie and Jud had been able to tell her was that it had happened in the war, in America, but nobody knew more – or if anyone did know more, they kept it quiet from respect. There had been another wound too, Demelza recalled. That one was less mysterious; in cold weather he sometimes still complained of pain from the place where he had been shot in the ankle.

“In a skirmish in America,” said Ross.

“The same where you got shot?”

“No, another.”

Demelza lifted a hand to touch his face, tracing her finger along the familiar line of his scar. Ross was not giving her the kind of warning look that told her to steer away from a subject, but neither was he offering her the details that she wanted. Demelza knew she would likely get little from him if she pressed him directly. Something, some taciturn part of him, would bridle at the direct inquiry. Demelza wanted his confidences, but not if he did not wish to share them. So she ran her forefinger down his scar and then up again, and she smiled at him.

“Lucky it missed your eye,” she said. “Though I reckon as you’d still look handsome with only one good eye.” Ross smirked a little, and laid his hand on her stomach. His thumb brushed back and forth, so lightly that it tickled. Demelza tried not to show how ticklish it felt, for she didn’t trust him not to take advantage of it.

“I’m glad you think so,” he teased her. “Are you quite recovered? You’ve been satisfied, but I have not yet.” He danced his fingers down her stomach, through the curls between her legs and then into the dampness of her sex. Demelza closed her eyes and caught her breath. It was barely a few minutes since she had peaked, but Ross’s fingers were clever. He stroked his thumb across her nub, the lightest of teasing touches, but it sent lightning through her veins. She arched up against him, wanting a firmer touch, but Ross took his hand away and chuckled at her frustrated moan.

“That’s cruel,” she said, opening her eyes again. Ross was smiling at her, a boyish delight in his smile and his eyes, and Demelza’s frustration melted away at the sight of it. She cherished seeing him like this, happy and open, and she cherished the idea that she was the cause of it. “Cruel,” she repeated softly. “You tease me something rotten, Ross Poldark.”

“That doesn’t sound a serious complaint,” he said. He rolled a little closer, dipping the mattress in such a way that their bodies collided. He kissed her, and Demelza responded eagerly. She could taste herself in his mouth, the taste of her sex hiding in the corners of his lips and underneath his tongue. His hand roved across her body, caressing her breasts and her arm and back down to tease his fingers through the damp curls between her legs. She could feel the hardness of him against her thigh. She wanted to feel him inside her, to take him in and be filled with him, but she was determined first to ask him whether he would gain the same pleasure from her mouth that she did from his.

“Ross,” she whispered. “Ross, I been wonderin’…” He tweaked at her nipple, and Demelza gulped in air and pressed her thighs together. The need was blazing into a fire again. Her nub was throbbing with it. “Ross,” she said, “I been wonderin’ if you’d like it – if I were to –,” Her courage failed her for a moment, and Ross paused in his ministrations and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Demelza reminded herself that he had never yet made her feel ashamed in their intimate relations, or by her lack of knowledge of the wondrous different pleasures that could be created between a man and a woman. “Would ee like it if I was to touch you – _here_ – wi’ my mouth?” she asked at last, reaching to stroke a hand down his cock. She had rushed and spoken poorly in her haste to speak, forgetting all she had learned of grammar and the proper way to say words, but she could not care. Not now, not when Ross shuddered at her rather clumsy touch, not when he looked at her as if seeing her anew.

“That,” he said roughly, “is not something that many ladies would contemplate.” It was a thing that Ross had only ever heard of as an act performed by prostitutes, by common street harlots who would do nearly anything for the right price. He had heard talk in the army, from married men, of wives being horrified by the very idea. He could not imagine Elizabeth – but it was wrong of him to think of Elizabeth while in bed with Demelza, and he refused to continue further in that direction.

“I’m not a lady,” said Demelza, ignorant of his wayward thoughts. She had stopped touching his cock, but her hand was resting close by, on his hip.

“You are,” Ross contradicted her. Or she would be from Monday, at least. Mrs Ross Poldark would be a lady, no matter how low her beginnings. Still, she had asked the question, and if she had asked then that meant that she had been thinking about it. _He_ gained pleasure from pleasuring her with his mouth; perhaps she might feel likewise. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I should like it. But only if you wish to, Demelza.”

The smile Demelza gave him was full of abashed happiness. It must have taken some courage to suggest it, he thought. So far she had never yet suggested any particular activity for their bed play, though she had always eagerly followed his lead. 

“Lie back, then,” she said, and she lifted her hand from his hip to his shoulder, giving him a little nudge. Ross chuckled and turned obediently onto his back. Demelza sat up and shifted herself until she was kneeling between his legs. Ross watched her, half-fascinated, as she tucked her hair behind her ears. Then she put a hand to the base of his cock and lowered her head. Her lips touched him, just a brief brush of her mouth against the head of his cock, and Ross had to shut his eyes against the sight of it. The sensation was too much; watching her would only make him finish quickly. 

She was tentative at first, kissing and then licking, her hand stroking him occasionally. Ross had to fling an arm up to grip the headboard when she took his cock into her mouth – not all of it, but enough for him to feel hot wetness around his cock, enough for him to have to grit his teeth against the urge to thrust up into her mouth. There was nothing artful in the way she touched him. She was careful to keep her teeth from him, but her lips and tongue, those she used with enthusiasm, if perhaps not skill. She could not take all of his cock into her mouth, but she used her hands as well. Before many minutes had passed, Demelza had reduced him to moans and shudders. The heat of her, the way she sucked at him, undid him in a way he had rarely experienced before. His pleasure built, an orgasm approaching. He opened his eyes to see her, cheeks hollowed and her gaze fixed firmly upon his face.

He climaxed. Demelza pulled back from him in time to avoid choking, but some of his seed trickled down from her mouth, and more splattered against her throat and breasts. Ross unclenched his hand from the headboard and flung his arm instead over his eyes. Demelza’s hand was still on his cock, milking the last of his peak from him, but in a moment it became too sensitive. Ross reached out for her then, taking her hand and entwining their fingers together.

Demelza stayed like that for a few moments, watching the heaving of his chest, and then she pulled her hand from his.

“I must wash,” she said softly. Ross muttered something but his mouth was hidden by his forearm, and she could not make out what he said. He seemed not to need any response, however, and so Demelza slid from the bed and went to the wash stand. Her face and chest were sticky with his seed, but it washed away with a wetted cloth, and none of it had got into her hair. Then she washed between her legs. Her own arousal had abated a little, enough to enable her to wash herself without the desire rising up again. She could easily come to another peak, she knew, and yet just as easily she could let it unwind and uncoil. She damped a clean cloth to take back to Ross in the bed. He had not moved. Demelza knew she had brought him pleasure, but the sight of him immobile in his satiety gave her a thrill of proud happiness. She had done this, she had pleased him so. 

“Demelza,” Ross said, a little more clearly than before. “Come back to bed, for God’s sake.”

“I’m here,” she said, hurrying back to the bed and dropping the wet cloth onto his stomach. It was cold, and Ross grumbled at her for it, but he cleaned himself and then let the cloth drop down onto the floor at the side of the bed. Demelza found her nightshirt and held it in her hands for a moment, but then set it aside. It was a warm night, and she was overly warm from their activities. She got into bed naked and rested against Ross, her head on his chest and his arm around her shoulders.

“I pleased you, then?” she asked after a few more moments of silence. Ross said nothing, but he held her a little tighter. Demelza did not truly feel she needed an answer. Ross was sated and spent, and he would not be so languid and so silent had she not brought him great pleasure. She rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Did anyone else ever do that for you?” she asked him. “You said as how ladies don’t.”

“I believe I’m of the conviction that you shouldn’t talk about your past affairs when in bed with the woman you intend to marry,” Ross said. It was gently spoken, but it was a rebuke nonetheless. Demelza accepted it, for she wasn’t really sure she wanted to hear about other women Ross had been with. Especially if – but no, Elizabeth was a proper lady, born and bred to gentility. She would never go to bed with a man before marriage, so Ross could never have been with her like this. He could be making no comparison in this, and so Demelza had no cause for jealousy. That was a comforting realisation.

In fact, Ross had only experienced such an act once before, in a brothel in his youth, when he had been far too young, eager and inexperienced to enjoy it. It had all been rather unsatisfactory. The woman had been skilful, no doubt, but he had not been in a position to appreciate it. That was long before he fell in love with Elizabeth, of course, long before anything like _love_ had entered his mind or his body. 

Demelza was not skilful, and yet even now, minutes after, Ross felt too sated to want to move. He could easily fall asleep now, with Demelza’s head on his chest. The window was still open, and a moth had come in and was fluttering around the three candles in the candelabra on the mantel. He ought to rise and shoo it outside, or at least to blow out the candles so the moth had no reason to stay. But he was too contented. Demelza was warm against him, her hair smelling faintly of salt, her skin soft against his. 

Tomorrow was Sunday, he thought idly. The last reading of the banns, and then Monday would follow, with the small ceremony that would change him, somehow, from a bachelor to a husband. Demelza would be changed too, but it seemed less strange to think of her changing than him. She had changed so much over the past three years whereas he…well, for all the progress he had made with the farm and the mine, Ross had been trapped in stagnant waters for a long time.

Demelza yawned then, and rolled off him, onto her side facing away from him. Ross turned his head to look at her. Her breathing had slowed a little as she grew sleepy. The candlelight flickered across her back, across the most vivid of her few remaining scars. It ran from between her shoulder blades down to the bottom of her ribs at her right side. A visible mark of her father’s treatment of her. There had been many more marks, when she had first come to Nampara, but the rest of those had either disappeared entirely or faded into insignificance. This one, the deepest of them, seemed to glimmer under the yellow candle flame. Ross lifted his hand and traced the scar with his forefinger, as Demelza had traced his own mark, not long before. She shivered a little.

“Tickles,” she mumbled. 

“My apologies,” said Ross, but put his hand between her shoulder blades rather than stop touching her. “The others are almost all gone,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I don’t think this will ever fade now.”

Demelza’s sleepiness vanished, for she heard an odd note in his voice. She did not fully understand it, but her instincts – animal and earthy, despite her greater education and broadened horizons – made her feel alert once more. Ross’s hand on her back was warm, anchoring her to him in some indescribable way. Could she remember what had caused the scar that seemed to have disturbed him so? Or rather, could she remember when it had happened? For by and large, her father had used his belt on her rather than any other implement. But it all blurred together, one long, dark nightmare from which she had been released by Ross. 

“P’raps not,” she agreed, cautious, feeling as though she did not know how he would respond. “It don’t matter, though. Nobody else’ll ever see it. Just you.”

“Hm,” was all Ross said for a while. Demelza began to settle again, though still his hand was at her back and still she could sense him watching her. “And you’ve heard nothing from your father?” he asked at length.

“No, Ross.”

“Would you tell me if you did?” he asked wryly, thinking of that occasion a little over two weeks ago when she had concealed Tom Carne’s visit from him. He knew that it wasn’t fair of him to compare the situation then with the situation now, but he was certain that Demelza would never have told him about her father’s visit had he not brought her back to Nampara and pulled the truth from her. Ross would not let such a thing happen again. Tom Carne would have no right to take Demelza away, not from Monday, but there was over a day between now and then, and Demelza was underage. Carne would have the right to protest the marriage, if he came before the vows were said.

“Yes, Ross,” said Demelza. “Of course I’d say. But he’s not been, not since he come to take me home.” She paused, and then wriggled around in the bed so she was facing him once again. She was smiling, warm and sleepy. “I don’t mean home,” she corrected herself. “Illugan’s not my home. This is – Nampara.” She patted the bed, as if it stood for Nampara itself. “Right here,” she murmured. “S’where I belong.”

“Right here?” Ross reached for her and pulled her into his arms, holding her close. She laughed, a rippling gurgle of laughter that made him want to forget all his thoughts of Tom Carne and the marks he had left on Ross’s young bride-to-be.

“Yes,” Demelza said. She nestled against him, tucking her head into his shoulder. “Right here.” She yawned. The moment of alarm, of worry about the direction of Ross’s mood, had passed. It was late. Tomorrow was Sunday, and she had little enough to do beyond the ordinary day-to-day chores of the farmyard and the kitchen. A bath tomorrow night, and then Monday. She had her new frock, and a petticoat, and she’d have new stockings and fresh flowers. Ross would look handsome. He always did, of course, but particularly when he dressed neatly and carefully, as she knew he would for Monday. Maybe not for her, maybe just because they would be going to church, but still he would be dressed smartly and she would be so very proud to go into Sawle church beside him and be married to him.

Ross was stroking her hair now. It was soothing, sending her ever-closer towards sleep. She yawned again. She could hear his heartbeat, though it was more the feeling of it than a true sound. It was as regular as the tide, regular as the engine at Wheal Leisure. Maybe a part of his heart would always belong elsewhere, but perhaps she might hope to have a part of it for herself one day. At any rate, she had this. She had Ross as her own in these quiet, peaceful moments together.

The candle guttered out. That was a waste, she thought, for it could have lasted another night or two if one of them had got up to blow it out. The moth, bereft of its desired light, clattered against the glass in the window and then managed to find its way out. The room was dark and silent, and Demelza went to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Demelza woke before the cock crowed on Monday morning. 

She crept out of bed and, as silently as she could, dressed herself in the clean undergarments that she had laid out the night before. Over those she wore her work dress, not her new frock. She would only change into that just before they were due to set off to Sawle, for she had chores to do this morning and did not wish to risk dirtying the new dress before the wedding.

Ross was still deeply asleep when she tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. He was not given to sleeping late; Demelza had perhaps an hour or two before he roused himself. Time enough to begin the morning’s tasks, and to go for a walk to see what flowers she could find. She went to the kitchen first, to light the stove and to mix a dough. Garrick was there waiting for her, patient as she mixed the dough and kneaded it, but eager to accompany her when she set the dough to rise and opened the kitchen door.

“Shh,” she reprimanded him, when he let out a joyful bark. “You’ll wake everyone up, an’ then we’ll be in trouble.” But she gave his side a gentle whack, just the way he liked, and Garrick danced circles around her, leaping and galloping, until they left the farm yard. Then he ran on ahead of her until she could barely see him in the grey pre-dawn. The sun would rise soon, and paint the world into colour again, but for now everything was still and silent, dark and full of shadows. Demelza was not afraid of walking in such gloom. She could count on one hand the number of times she had been afraid since coming to Nampara. She knew this land now, she knew where the ground beneath her feet was uneven, she knew where each tree was and each bush. She followed the path she had followed many times before, across the valley in search of flowers for her bridal bouquet.

The sun rose slowly, painting colour across the countryside. Garrick came racing back to her at such a speed that he almost toppled her over. Demelza laughed, and she broke into a run, letting Garrick chase her. It was a game, for he was far too fast for her to outrun, but Garrick knew the game well, and he did not catch her for some minutes. Then, breathless, Demelza sank down into the long grass and hugged her dog. 

“It’s today, Garrick,” she told him. “We’re gettin’ married today.” Garrick, of course, could not understand her, nor reply. But Garrick had been her only confidante ever since she had saved him, and Demelza didn’t care that he only licked her cheek and panted in her ear. Demelza Poldark, she thought to herself. Demelza Poldark. Just a few hours now, and then there was no turning back, not for either of them.

Then she became a little afraid, for until the thing was done – until he had actually married her – Demelza could not help wondering whether Ross would, in the end, go through with it. She could not help fearing that they would get to the church, to the altar even, and Ross would say that he had been mistaken and that she must go back to her father. She did not want to believe he would do that, not after the past two and a half weeks. They had eaten together, and walked together, and laughed together. They had shared a bed and Ross had shown her such pleasures as she had never dreamed could be possible. She did not _truly_ think that he would jilt her at the altar, but the fear was there, sending little shivers down her spine occasionally as if somebody had pressed a piece of ice against her skin.

The sun was climbing higher in the sky. Demelza hugged Garrick once more, and then she stood and went in search of her flowers. She was determined to be back at Nampara before Ross woke, and to have breakfast ready for him as soon as he liked. Today she was determined that everything should run smoothly in the house, for today was her wedding day.

Ross had in fact woken briefly when Demelza had slipped from the bed and dressed herself. He had guessed that she was off on one of her quests for flowers. He had opened his eyes just a little to see her moving around in the greyness of the bedroom, and then he had gone back to sleep. 

He woke again as the sun rose. The curtains were only partly drawn, so warm sunlight spilled across the room, reflecting from polished candlesticks and the mirror at the dresser. Ross fumbled for his pocket watch to check the time, and then he rose and went to wash. He planned to spend the morning with paperwork so that he needn’t bother to change later, so he took care with his clothing. A clean, pressed shirt, clean breeches and waistcoat. His coat he would leave off until later, for it was already warm and the day hardly begun. 

He was not given to nerves – few men were, he had found, after a tenure in the army, unless they became nothing _but_ nerves – but he felt a little nervous today. His hands did not falter as he buttoned his waistcoat, he displayed no outward sign of it, but there was a slightly sour taste in the back of his mouth and an unusual awareness that he must look presentable for his own wedding. For Demelza’s sake, if for no other reason. She had worked hard on her new dress, and he suspected that her morning wandering was with the aim of providing herself with flowers to carry with her at the wedding. 

The sour taste in his mouth grew worse. He wanted her to be happy, of course he did. And no doubt it would make her happy, to carry her flowers and to wear her new dress and for him to commit himself to her in the eyes of law and of God. No doubt, for despite her anxious fretting over how it would change her status, Ross knew that he had pleased her by pledging to marry her. He knew Demelza cared for him in a deeper way than he cared for her.

_Love_ , he remonstrated himself. Call it what it was, today of all days. Demelza loved him. She was happy with their impending marriage because she loved him, loved him with a devotion that he had done little to deserve. She knew, she _must_ know, that his feelings did not match hers, and yet that knowledge did not seem to mar her happiness. Ross must try to follow her lead, and be as contented as he could be with the situation. He would not and could not change his mind now. He had made the decision to marry her, and Demelza had agreed, and today it would be done.

There was a little water left in the jug on the dresser, and he poured it into a glass and swallowed it down to wash away the sourness. It seemed to work well enough. He tied his stock and glanced at the mirror to check that all was as it should be, and then he went downstairs. 

Demelza was in the kitchen, humming as she worked. Her bread was baking, the chickens had been fed, eggs collected, and breakfast was well under way. Jud had not yet appeared, but Jack Cobbledick had arrived and was already milking the cows. Her flowers were on the kitchen table in a jug of water. They would last well, kept in water until just before they left for the church. There were some for her hair, too, a cluster of daisies. Prudie had promised to help with her hair, if she needed it. Demelza wasn’t sure she would accept, for Prudie had never shown herself to be particularly careful in her own hair or dress, but she had been grateful to Prudie for the offer.

Garrick alerted her to Ross’s presence by giving a short, high-pitched bark of greeting. She turned and nodded at Ross, hiding her nervousness as well as she could.

“Breakfast’ll be ready as soon as you like,” she said. Ross came to the table and stole a boiled egg from the table. He smiled when Demelza pursed her lips and gave him a look, but he took nothing more and retreated a step or two with his prize. Demelza shook her head, but she couldn’t help smiling. She liked that he teased her like this. It made him seem younger somehow, more carefree. She loved the different ways he looked when he teased her, when he smiled, and when he tried not to smile, and when all that gave him away was the slightest hint of mirth in his eyes. She loved all his expressions. He was her whole world, and in a few hours she would be his wife.

“I’ll see to the chores first,” Ross said. “Jud not up yet?” Demelza shook her head again, and Ross grimaced slightly. “Well, he can go out to the barn when he’s up, and start restacking the hay. It looks as though he’s been rolling in it.” Demelza had a suspicion he was right – she had seen Jud and Prudie emerging from the barn several evenings ago – but she kept that to herself. 

“I didn’t wake you, goin’ out early?” she asked instead. “I wanted to fetch some flowers…it’s right, Ross? For me to have flowers? Jinny had flowers.” 

“If you want them, have them,” was all Ross had to say. Demelza would have liked clearer guidance from him, but if Jinny had had flowers, then Demelza supposed it was appropriate and respectable enough for her to carry flowers too. At any rate, Ross raised no objections, and even if it wasn’t right, only Ross and the Paynters and Reverend Odgers would see. There would be nobody else there, for his cousin Verity was unwell and nobody else had been invited. 

At breakfast, eaten together in the parlour, Demelza was quiet. She answered when he spoke to her, but lacked her usual cheerful conversation. Ross assumed it was apprehension that made her so quiet, and it heightened his own uneasiness. He refused to give in to it. He reminded himself that her feelings were perfectly understandable, and that in a few hours none of it would matter anyway, for they would be married and their path fixed forever. 

“Have you much to do this morning?” Ross asked her after a while, when her plate was almost empty and his own not far behind. He was pleased to see her anxiety had not affected her appetite. But, he reflected wryly, not much ever did. She was young and active, and besides that, she still had a slight tendency to approach every meal as if it might be taken from her if she let her guard down. Nothing like the way she had acted when she had first come to Nampara, but sometimes he could see it still. It was in the way her hand sometimes curved protectively around a bowl, or the way she sometimes ate quickly, as if somebody might snatch the food from her hand if she was not fast enough. The habits of her first thirteen years had not been entirely broken since she had come to Nampara. Some habits, Ross supposed, became ingrained instinct, hard to discard when no longer necessary or appropriate. 

“Not so much as usual,” Demelza said, glancing up at him with eyes that seemed impossibly wide. “Prudie an’ I fixed it so there ain’t – _isn’t_ – much to do in the house, ‘cept the meals.” 

“Well, come to the library when you have time,” Ross instructed her. “And we must leave by ten, or we’ll be late.”

“Yes, Ross,” said Demelza. “I’ll make sure Jud an’ Prudie know.” 

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that he’ll be sober,” he added. He said it to make her smile, for he had found that he liked to have her smiling at him at breakfast, especially if she had risen before him. When she did that, she deprived him of the particular smiles and gentle touches that they often shared in the morning when they awoke together in bed. He could live without those intimacies – because of course he had only recently been blessed with them at all – but Demelza’s smiles were a pleasant way to start any day. Particularly today, their wedding day. He wanted to see her smile at him this morning, to remind him that no matter what his reasons were for marrying her, at least Demelza was made happy by it.

His comment was rewarded. Demelza’s eyes lost their wide, scared look and she smiled at him, amused and gaily mischievous.

“You could always lock the pantry,” she suggested. “An’ the cupboard in the parlour. Then there’d only be the small ale, an’ it’d take a powerful lot of that to get him drunk.” She tilted her head a little to one side, her smile widening into a grin. “Course, then we’d have to put up with his grumblin’ all the way to church. ‘T’idn’t right’,” she mimicked. “’T’idn’t fitty’.” She copied Jud’s tone and accent so well that Ross had to laugh, both with humour and as a relief for the tension that had settled into his stomach like a weight. 

“True enough,” he said. “Well, there’s still some of the good brandy left over from the last run. I’ll let them have a bottle of it this evening, to celebrate.” Not that Jud would appreciate it – nor Prudie, though she did seem to have warmed to the idea of Demelza as her mistress. He would never have expected it of her, or at least not so quickly. But Demelza had her charms, and had clearly worked some magic upon the older woman.

“Celebrate?” Demelza repeated inquiringly. 

“Yes, celebrate,” said Ross, lifting an eyebrow at her. “It may have escaped your notice, Demelza, but I’m to be married today.” 

Demelza lifted her foot off the floor and stretched it out to give Ross the gentlest of pokes to his shin. It was not an action that she would have dared to take three weeks before, nor even one week before. Even now she felt as if her heart skipped a beat as she did it. It was meant as a gentle remonstrance with him for teasing her so, but she had never done such a thing before, and she was nervous of his reaction.

But Ross’s eyes were twinkling at her, and his mouth was twisted into a smirk. Demelza’s heart resumed its normal rhythm, reassured by his expression.

“I don’t b’lieve Jud’d want to celebrate it no matter how much brandy you was to give ‘im,” she said. She was willing to make fun of Jud in his absence, at least as a jest shared with Ross, particularly if it helped ease the occasional shiver of apprehension that still ran down her spine at intervals. The meal was almost over, her plate and cup empty now and only a little tea left in Ross’s cup. She must go and take care of the chores that could not be left for another day. At the very least their bed needed airing and then making afresh, and she must begin to prepare dinner. This afternoon she would sweep and dust the parlour, and feed the calves, and see that the new chicks were thriving. And Ross wanted her in the library before they left, though he’d given her no hint as to why. She must be ready to leave Nampara at ten, as Ross had said. They would walk over to Sawle, she and Ross and Jud and Prudie, and then – and then – 

“I must get to work,” Ross said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Don’t forget about Jud and the barn.”

Demelza did not forget, though Jud took it with ill grace when she gave him Ross’s message. Still, he went out to the barn and left Prudie and Demelza to get on with their own tasks. Prudie undertook to clean the parlour, muttering something about Demelza not working too hard on her own wedding day. Demelza made no objection, though she could not see how her afternoon would be any different today than any other day. By noon the wedding would be done, and there would be no celebration, no wedding dinner or afternoon dance. Ross had given her no indication that he planned to spend the afternoon with her, either in work or in leisure. Still, Demelza was willing to let Prudie do the cleaning for her. She could spend the time in her garden. She had neglected it over the past few days, too intent on finishing her new frock. 

Prudie sniffed when Demelza said this.

“Now look ee,” she said, “Cap’n Ross be a strange ‘un, but ‘e’s still a man, all told. It do funny things to some men, bein’ wed. You just rest yourself up, ‘fore tonight.” Demelza’s cheeks heated. Prudie’s insinuation was clear, but Demelza thought that to answer it would be wrong. From today, Prudie would no longer be her superior or even her equal. Ross would never suffer such talk, Demelza knew well, and though she could not yet imagine herself actually reprimanding Prudie, still she could discourage her from speaking so, by holding her tongue and refusing to let herself be drawn out.

“Fetch us some flour an’ I’ll make pasties for dinner,” she said. Prudie sniffed again, unwilling to be put off, but Demelza was determined. “I’ll put ‘em to cook when we get back, but I can make ‘em now,” she continued. “Then do the parlour, an’ after I’ll go up to change.”

Ross had been at work for some time when Demelza came to him in the library, as instructed. She was still in her work dress, her apron tied around her waist. There was a smudge of flour on her cheek. Ross didn’t point it out. She would look at herself in the mirror before they left, he was sure, and it was an oddly endearing sight.

“You wanted me to come,” Demelza said, a trifle hesitant, as if she was unsure of her welcome – or unsure why she had been so instructed.

“Yes,” he agreed, holding out a hand for her. Her smile was tremulous, but she crossed the library with light steps and willingly put her hand in his. “I have three things for you,” he said. One was a gift – the cloth he had bought her for a best dress – but the other two things were symbols of the duties of her new life as his wife, and he was not sure how she would react to those. Would it be happiness or apprehension? he wondered. No way of telling, he thought, for she’s been both, these past weeks; perhaps I should have waited until after. Too late now. Demelza’s hand was in his and she was looking at him expectantly.

The gift first, he decided, in a rare moment of cowardice. She would react better if she had the fine cloth first. Without releasing her hand, he turned and reached behind him to the window ledge, where the yellow cloth was wrapped in brown paper and string. He had felt safe enough leaving it there, hidden in plain sight, for the only time he had known Demelza to pry was when she had opened the chests in here and found his mother’s clothes. 

“Here,” he said, giving it to her. Demelza squeezed his hand a little and then released it so that she could unwrap the parcel. The string and brown paper was discarded onto the desk, and the yellow fabric spilled out from Demelza’s hands, the folds loosening so that the breadth of it, and a good deal of the length, was spread out across the desk before them. “You’ll need a good dress,” he said gruffly. “I thought the yellow would suit. We can always buy something different, if you prefer.”

“Oh,” Demelza said softly. “Oh, Ross.” She looked and looked at the cloth, and ran her fingers over it. Ross watched her, waiting for the first moment of gratitude that he might brush it aside quickly. But Demelza seemed unable to speak. Her eyes were wide and her lips parted, but she was silent. Then she swallowed and folded the cloth back into a neat parcel. “It’ll be that lovely,” she said. She sounded husky with emotion, but to Ross’s relief she expressed little of it. “It’s nicer’n anything I ever had,” she told him, hugging the material to her chest. “Thank you, Ross.”

“Thank Prudie,” Ross said. “She suggested it. Likely she’d have made a better choice of fabric.” Demelza glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes, and Ross moved on swiftly, before she could say anything more. He disliked being thanked for things that did not need gratitude. Prudie had been right, his wife should have a best dress, and it was his responsibility to provide for her. “I think you’ll like your next gift less, my dear,” he said. The household accounts were done in a large ledger, which he kept in a drawer of his desk. Next to it in the drawer was a large bunch of keys, those to the doors and cabinets in Nampara. The keys and the ledger had been his ever since he had come home to find himself fatherless, but now they would be Demelza’s responsibility. 

He took them from the drawer and held them out to Demelza, who put down her new cloth and took them with a troubled look. 

“Do ee mean for me to do the book-keepin’?” she asked, and Ross inclined his head. “But Ross,” Demelza protested, “Ross, I can hardly figure at all, I’d just make a muddle of it, an – an’ spend too much, an’ –,”

“And of course I’ll help you, for as long as you need help,” Ross interrupted her. His tone was gentle but his expression was firm. Demelza knew, when she looked at him, that in this she would not be able to gainsay him. She pursed her lips and put the keys to one side so that she could open the ledger. Columns of neatly-written figures greeted her, all in Ross’s familiar hand. She could count, of course. She was capable of adding or subtracting simple amounts, such as was necessary for following a written receipt or for bartering over a barrel of salted pilchards. Of late she had been entrusted with more responsibility with money for the household, trusted to know what needed to be bought and not to be frivolous. But she had never done the sort of sums that she surely would need for doing the household accounts. That was beyond her capabilities.

And yet, she thought, didn’t I think the very same thing about reading and writing? I never thought I could do that, but I can now, a little, and I’m getting better all the time. Ross wouldn’t ask it of her if he didn’t think she could do it, and she hated to think that by refusing she might be letting him down.

“I – I’ll try, Ross,” she said at last. “Of course I’ll try, if you’ll help.”

“It’s a usual responsibility for the mistress of a house,” Ross said, looking away from her and shuffling some of the papers on his desk. “And the keys, of course.”

Of course. Demelza knew that. And she knew these keys, or most of them. The heavy key to the front door, the little-used one for the kitchen door. The keys to all the different rooms of the house, and for the cupboard with the expensive wines and liquors. There were only a few she did not know, keys that she had never had cause to ask for. And now Ross was giving them to her, all of them, as her responsibility. 

“Oh, Ross,” she said. She put the book down and fell to her knees, hiding her face against his leg. Heartache rose within her and threatened to choke her throat with tears. “Ross, I’d do ‘most anythin’ for you, you know – I live only for you – an’ you know I’m so happy, but –,”

“Demelza…”

“ – but you mustn’t marry me if it won’t make you happy too,” she continued, determined to say it before it was too late. All the fears and anxieties of the past weeks had overcome her. The keys, the ledger, Ross’s kindnesses and gifts, it all seemed too incredible to be true. He wanted her, she was sure enough of that, but desire was not, could not be, enough. She would not trap him in unhappiness. Not for all the world would she do that, though it would break her own heart. She knew his sense of duty, the responsibilities that he gladly took upon his own shoulders. She did not want to be merely another responsibility for him, another duty. She did not want him to ever be sorry that he had married her, or ever to feel that she had tried to trap him into it. She could not bear it; it would break her heart. 

And of course people would talk, if the marriage was abandoned so close to the hour set for the wedding, but what did that matter, when her heart would be broken? They would call her a slut and him a scoundrel, and worse besides, but Ross would not care about that. And she – could go back to Illugan, go back to being her family’s drudge, or she could find another position elsewhere, somewhere far enough that nobody knew she had been Ross Poldark’s upstart kitchen maid. 

She was crying now. Her tears were making his breeches wet at the knee, where her face was pressed against him. Ross hated seeing Demelza cry. It felt like that first day all over again, that first day after she had come to his bedroom, when she had tried to leave and he had gone after her. She had cried then, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks pale. Now she cried again, though in a little more than an hour they would be married. She would know, then, that she was wanted here, not merely needed. Surely she would know that. Surely she knew already. Foolish girl, he thought. He wanted to be irritated with her but her tears made that impossible.

He grasped her elbows and hauled her up and onto his knee. She came without protest. Her face was wet, her cheeks streaked with salty tears, but she wept with barely a sound. 

“Where are your new handkerchiefs?” he asked, made gentle by the sight of her face. 

“Left ‘em upstairs.” Demelza lifted her apron instead and tried to dry her face with that. Ross put his arm around her waist and pulled her against him, so her head was resting on his shoulder. Words did not come easily to him, and there was so much that, if said, would hurt Demelza deeply. His reasons for marrying her were, with a few exceptions, not things that he could explain to her without causing her pain. Yet Demelza was crying, and so he could not say _nothing_. 

Given her feelings for him, he reflected, there was something noble in her offer to release him from his promise. His earlier instinct towards irritation melted entirely away, leaving only fondness, and a new respect.

She was still sobbing, quiet tears that shook her thin shoulders, but it seemed to be easing off. Her apron covered her face now, and Ross gently pulled it down so that he could look at her. She did not meet his eyes. Too afraid, he thought; she’s afraid of my answer; I should call her a silly child, but she’s no child, not any longer; she’s a woman grown and, for better or for worse, I’ll marry her this morning.

“Calm down,” he said softly. “You’re overwrought. You were up too early, you haven’t had enough sleep.”

“Yes, Ross,” Demelza whispered. He couldn’t tell if she was agreeing with him, or merely saying it because she felt she should. It didn’t matter. He stroked her hair and heard her tears slow and then cease entirely. Occasionally a hiccupping sob broke through, but Demelza was calming now. Ross said nothing more until she was quite still in his arms, and there were no more tears dampening his shirt.

“Now, my dear,” he said then. “No more of this. Do you suppose I would have suggested this at all, if I didn’t want it?” Demelza shook her head slowly. “So dry your face, and go and wash and change,” he said. “In an hour’s time – or a little more – it will be done. And then no more of this nonsense, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Ross,” she said again, with a little more strength to her voice now. “I’m – I’m sorry, Ross. You’re right, I s’pose I just didn’t get much sleep, an’ – an’ it’s all…” She trailed off, unable to express herself and unwilling to try. Fresh tears stung at her eyes again but she blinked them away. She felt she had made a fool of herself. But Ross seemed firm in his own mind about his path, and Demelza’s conscience was clear now. She had spoken up, but he had not taken the escape she had laid open for him. 

She slid off his lap and lifted her apron again, to dry the last of her tears. 

“I’ll go an’ change,” she mumbled. She felt ashamed of herself for crying like a child, especially today. But Ross had not reprimanded her; he had been gentle and kind, as if he understood everything that she was feeling. That was something, at least. She let her apron fall back down and turned to leave. She would retreat upstairs, change into her new frock, and try to gather her dignity once more. 

“Wait,” Ross said, catching at her hand and keeping her trapped with him. Demelza sniffed and lifted her arm as if to wipe her nose with her sleeve, but she caught herself in time and let her arm fall to her side again. That was common, she told herself, and not proper. She ought to use a handkerchief. 

Ross released her hand and stood up. He went to the mantelpiece, where a bottle of wine and a glass had been left so he hadn’t far to go for a drink if he was working late. Demelza watched as he poured a measure of wine into the glass, and then he brought it back to her. 

“Drink this,” he ordered her. 

“You don’t like me drinkin’,” Demelza said, but she accepted the glass and drained it in a few gulps. 

“No, I don’t, not when you find a bottle of gin and down it in one afternoon,” Ross agreed, taking the empty glass and setting it on the desk. “I despise a drunk woman. But a glass of wine will steady you.” Demelza did not feel steadied, but she managed to smile a watery smile at Ross, and he seemed pleased by it. “No more of this,” he reminded her. “Now go on, we must leave soon.”

Demelza went gladly, out of the library and up the stairs to the bedroom that she still thought of as Ross’s. Her new red dress was laid over the back of a chair, waiting for her. There was hot water in the wash basin. That was Prudie’s doing, Demelza deduced. Her flowers had been brought up too – both the big bunch she had gathered to carry, and the handful of daisies for her hair. Demelza found one of her new handkerchiefs, in one of the drawers that Ross had set aside for her, and she blew her nose. 

No more of this nonsense, Ross had said. No more of it. She would obey him as best she could, as she always did. 

It did not take Demelza long to change and to dress her hair. Her undergarments were still clean, the sleeves of her shift still fresh enough where they would show below the cuffs of the frock. She washed her face and hands first, so the new dress would not be splashed with water. Then she put on the new stockings that Prudie had knitted for her, and tied the garters with particular care. She had a vision of herself in church, her stockings falling down around her ankles, and the curate turning up his nose at her. But her knots were good. Jim Carter had taught her the knots she knew, and he had taught her well. Then her new petticoat, which was light enough for summer use and so Demelza would not overheat. On top of that, her dress. She had to tighten her stays a little before she could fasten the hooks at the bodice of the dress, for she’d only laced them loosely this morning when dressing, and she and Prudie had deliberately made this new frock close-fitted. 

She took up her comb then, damped it, and used it ruthlessly on her wayward curls. She would leave her hair down, Demelza decided, but pull it back from her face and use the daisies to hide the hairpins. In a few minutes she was done. She could not see enough of her hair in the mirror to be sure, but she thought it looked pretty enough. Her curls had been straightened a little by the damp comb, and her hair seemed longer than usual. She ought to cut it soon. Though Ross seemed to like to play with the length of it, so perhaps she might grow it out.

Ross’s coat was still here, folded over the end of the bed. Demelza picked it up, knowing Ross would need it, and then took up her bouquet of flowers. The storm had passed within her, and she felt only calm acceptance now. Perhaps it was the glass of wine, or perhaps the tears had cleansed her of the greater part of her fears. Either way, Demelza felt that whatever happened now, whatever troubles came to them in their married life because of who she was and where she came from, at least Ross had said to her that he would not marry her if he did not want to do so.

She took one last glance around the room, to make sure she had not forgotten anything. But all was as it should be, and there was nothing else to take downstairs with her, so she left the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Ross had been making his own preparations downstairs. Once Demelza had gone up, he had stared for too long at the bottle of wine, trying to decide if he should have a glass himself, to steady his own resolve. Demelza’s upset had touched some deep nerve within him. He did not care to examine too closely his feelings about Demelza’s tears, either the fact of them or the reason for them, but he knew that he did not like to see her crying. More than dislike, it filled him with discomfort and an unaccountable sense of guilt and unhappiness. Those were not emotions he was accustomed to feeling in relation to Demelza, and it was as troubling to him as the strange transformation she seemed so easily able to accomplish from the daytime Demelza to that sexual being of the night.

But the day had barely started, and though Ross knew he still drank too much, a glass of wine at scarcely half past nine in the morning – on his wedding day, no less – would make him feel a drunkard and a coward. So he put the glass back on the mantelpiece and went to find Jud and Jack Cobbledick. He found them both in the barn, restacking the hay, and he sent Jud off to clean himself up. Ross hardly expected miracles from this, but he felt sure that Prudie would at least make sure Jud’s face and hands were clean, and his clothing free from hay. To Jack Cobbledick he gave orders for the rest of the morning, though Cobbledick hardly needed directing. A couple of the Martin children were in the farmyard, waiting for their instructions. Ross supposed Demelza had been too distracted to give them enough to do, though he could see that the yard had been swept and the stables mucked out. He sent them off to thin out the turnips, and smiled after them as they hurried to do his bidding. Then he checked his pocket watch. Nearly twenty minutes to ten. Demelza had been upstairs only ten minutes or so. There was still plenty of time.

Ross wandered into the kitchen. It was clean and neat, as he had come to expect. Prudie was absent – he supposed she was upstairs tidying herself up. There was a tray on the table covered with a cloth, and when he lifted a corner of the cloth he found four fat pasties. Dinner, he assumed. He went back to the kitchen door and stood, hands braced against the doorframe. There was no sign of Garrick, either in the kitchen or the yard. It would be no bad thing if Garrick had gone on one of his wanders, for short of tying him up there was rarely any way to keep him from following Demelza. The idea of it made Ross smile; Garrick wandering at their heels, bringing Demelza a stick or half a rabbit while she tried to keep her skirts clean. It was amusing to picture, but it would not do.

He checked his pocket watch again, for lack of anything else to do. Two minutes had passed. Ross could not even call to hurry Demelza, for there was no need for haste. He put his watch away and went to rinse his hands under the pump. There was an ink stain on his forefinger. It faded with rubbing, but did not disappear entirely. Well, it could not be helped. He doubted Demelza would care. He went back into the kitchen to find a towel to dry his hands with, and found Demelza there.

She looked quite changed, somehow. He felt irrationally disgruntled at being faced with yet another transformation, yet another Demelza. Her new dress was as simple as her old ones, but better fitted – made for her, unlike her old work dresses. Her stays must have been tightened; her breasts seemed more bound than earlier, and her waist more slender. She had done something to her hair, too. Flowers, of course. He had expected her to have flowers in her hair. She would not be his Demelza if she had not worn flowers to her own wedding.

“Did I take too long?” she asked him anxiously as he stepped into the kitchen. “I brought your coat down for you – I’m ready to go now, if we need to, only I’m not sure Jud an’ Prudie are ready yet.”

“You took hardly any time at all,” Ross assured her. He dried his hands on a cloth and tried not to stare overtly. She looked charming, he decided. Not beautiful, not bridal in the way Elizabeth had been at her wedding, but charming. Despite the newness of her appearance, she was still utterly herself, still Demelza. She was pale to the point of whiteness, but at least her eyes bore no trace of her earlier tears. She held a bunch of flowers in one hand, and the other clutched nervously at the skirt of her dress.

In less than an hour, Ross reminded himself, they would be married. He would be tied to this waif, irrevocably bound to her, and she would be bound in turn to him. In a few minutes they would set out to walk to Sawle Church, where Reverend Odgers would perform the ceremony, and then when they came back to Nampara, they would be man and wife.

He found he could not say anything to her. She looked at him with wide eyes and pale cheeks, and he could not speak. So he discarded the cloth and turned back to look out at the farm yard.

“We might as well leave now,” he said, words coming more easily when he could not see her. “There’s no reason to leave it until we have to hurry. Jud and Prudie can follow.”

Demelza called up the message to the Paynters while Ross donned his coat. She waited for a grunted response, and then took Ross’s offered arm for the walk to Sawle. He seemed to have barely looked at her since she came downstairs in her new frock, and she felt it keenly, though she had never expected him to compliment her. He had never done so before, and Demelza knew him well enough to know how rarely his compliments were bestowed upon anyone, but there was a part of her that would have liked to see appreciation in his expression, even for a moment. Instead there had been a kind of shuttering away of his thoughts and feelings when he had first seen her in her new dress, and he had not looked again.

Still, it was not in Demelza’s nature to dwell on minor disappointments for long. The day was warm, the sky was clear. She could hear gulls calling from the sea, and blackbirds singing in the lilac tree at the front of the house. She was pleased with her bouquet of flowers, and contented with her dress, and warmed by the way Ross slowed his pace so she did not have to hurry to keep up with him. She liked that, for though she had long legs, his were longer and so he took longer strides than she. And being on his arm meant they walked close together. His arm brushed against the side of her breast occasionally, and his coat tangled with her skirts a little. Though he was silent, Demelza felt a strong sense of companionship, to be walking thus with him.

It was she who broke the silence. They had just crossed the stream when she stopped still and tugged at his arm.

“Ross,” she said, “Ross, I never thought.”

“Thought of what?” he asked, glancing at her at last, one eyebrow raised in a way that might have been mocking, save for the twist of his mouth and the warmth in his eyes.

“I’ve no ring,” Demelza said, looking down at her bare hands. “Even dirt-poor in Illugan, my mother had a ring.” There was no trace of mockery on his face at all now, only amusement. Demelza pursed her lips and frowned up at him. “I was so caught up with thinkin’ about my frock,” she said, “I never thought of rings. What’ll we do, Ross?”

“Well, then,” said Ross, his amusement seeming to have vanished, “I’m afraid we’ll simply have to use whatever we can find.” Demelza stared at him, not quite sure if he was teasing her or not. It was so hard to tell, sometimes. Often there was a particular twinkle in his eye, sometimes a solemnity about him that was clearly counterfeit, but sometimes there was simply nothing to show for it until he could no longer resist smiling or laughing. 

“ _Ross_ ,” she said plaintively. “I don’t care if you was to put a wooden curtain ring on my finger, you know that, but –,”

“I think we can manage something a little better than that,” Ross said. He urged her onwards and they resumed their slow walk. “There’s a ring in my waistcoat pocket,” he said then. “It was my mother’s.”

“Oh,” said Demelza, and then was quiet for a while. Some families, she knew – rich and poor alike – passed down wedding rings from one generation to another, so a ring might be given from a grandmother to her granddaughter, a great-aunt to a niece, even a mother to a daughter, if the mother was a widow. More often a ring was made from a cheaper metal, or even wood, and nobody expected those to last for three or more generations. He’s never spoken of his mother, she thought; I don’t know what kind of a lady she was; I wonder if she’d mind, or if she’s up in heaven looking down and wondering what her son’s doing marrying a kitchen maid. 

“Do it – _does it_ – fit?” she asked, when they had walked quarter a mile or more in silence.

“Hm?” said Ross, pulled from his own thoughts by her question. “Does what fit? Oh, the ring. Yes, it does. I tried it on your finger one night, last week, when you were asleep.” If it hadn’t fitted well, he would have contrived an extra visit to Truro to have it resized by a good jeweller, rather than by the local blacksmith. The ring was hardly worth much, a simple gold band, but it had been his mother’s, and clearly Joshua Poldark had valued it enough to keep it safe among his mother’s possessions. Ross thought it was fitting that Demelza should have it as her wedding ring.

“Was that the night I woke up an’ felt a draught, an’ you said you’d just been using the pot?” Demelza asked, mirth in her voice. Ross didn’t answer, but Demelza was quick enough and came to her own conclusions. “Why do it so secret-like?” she wanted to know.

“It wasn’t a secret,” Ross defended himself. “I just didn’t want to bother you with it. You’ve had enough to do, these past two weeks.” In truth, he had barely remembered in time that she would need a ring. If his mother’s ring had been the wrong size, it would have been hard to get it resized in time, and he would probably have had to buy a new one for Demelza in order to have it ready for today. But the ring had fitted Demelza’s finger rather better than Grace Poldark’s blue silk dress had fitted her body. 

Demelza said nothing, though a quick glance at her showed her frowning a little, her eyebrows drawn together and a crease between them. Ross thought over his words, trying to see what might have made her frown, but the next time he looked at her the frown had gone, leaving a smooth brow. She disliked the suggestion that she could not manage, perhaps. But it had been a small thing, and her mood so changeable over the past fortnight.

They walked on. It was nearly four miles to Sawle, and Ross had a suspicion that his ankle might ache later. Eight miles was further than he walked with any frequency, and though the wound was well-healed, sometimes it ached to remind him that he would likely never be wholly free of it. They might have ridden, but Demelza would have had to ride pillion in her new frock, and riding side-saddle was not a skill she had yet acquired. He ought to buy her a horse, and a proper saddle. Perhaps when the mine began to show a clear profit. 

After a while he thought he should make some effort to speak. He could only guess at her feelings, but he supposed she was still anxious. But what to say? To comment on the fine weather, or the good crops in the fields around them, or the repairs needed at Mellin Cottages – these were all fine and good for an ordinary day, and on an ordinary day he would speak freely to Demelza on any of those subjects. On any day but today, he could converse with Demelza with greater or lesser ease. But today he could think of nothing appropriate. He could not compliment her dress or her hair; he was not entirely sure what he thought of her appearance, so different did she seem, but regardless of his inner thoughts, he was not given to straightforward compliments, and he could not give one to Demelza.

Demelza seemed not to mind his silence. She walked by his side, on his arm, and whenever he risked a look at her, she appeared calm, though still pale. There was a gentle breeze blowing, rifling through her hair but not disordering it in any great way. It was growing harder and harder to remember the skinny little stray he had brought home. The child had been supplanted entirely by the woman, just as soon Demelza Carne would cease to exist and be replaced by Demelza Poldark.

They arrived at Sawle village in good time, and found it as busy as usual. It was rarely quiet in Sawle. Though most of the men and a good number of the women were employed in the mines, chiefly at Grambler, they worked in shifts and so there were always people about. There were old men sitting with their pipes – old at barely thirty, most of them, dying of lung disease and other complaints common to miners – and children, who stopped to stare as Ross guided Demelza towards the church. She tried to follow his lead and ignore the onlookers, but it was hard when she could feel their stares on the back of her neck, making her want to slouch away and hide. A woman passed them, a basket of fish in her hand and a baby tied in a sling across her chest, and gave Demelza a quizzical look before seeming to realise that Demelza was on Ross Poldark’s arm. He was so well-known here, and so well respected. Demelza only hoped that he would not lose their respect, in marrying her. Not only a maid, but a stranger to the district too. Three years was not long enough for it to be forgotten that she came from Illugan, further than most of these people had ever been.

“We’ll have to wait for Jud and Prudie,” said Ross as they reached the churchyard. His voice was edged with impatience, and Demelza glanced back the way they had come. No sign of the Paynters, though she had seen them following behind, before they had reached Sawle.

“They won’t be long,” she said, though she knew as well as Ross did that Jud would be dragging his heels and complaining every step of the way from Nampara.

“They had better not be,” was Ross’s reply. He was facing the church, his gaze roaming across the graveyard and further, towards the nearby house where Mr Odgers scraped a living with his wife and children. Eight or nine of them, Demelza recalled. More than her own family, but less than others. Children came, whether there was food for them or not. She thought, for the first time, of the children that she and Ross might bring forth. She should like children, she thought. She should like to give Ross a child, though she would not like to be fat and waddling, as women became when they were far gone in pregnancy.

“I think you should put your age as eighteen,” Ross said to her then, breaking into the dream that Demelza had begun to build in her mind. She blinked up at him, confused. 

“Why?” she asked. “I was only seventeen this spring. Does it matter so much? I’m underage, anyhow.”

“It matters not at all to us,” said Ross. A shiver of happiness ran down Demelza’s spine. Us, she thought; he’s said ‘us’. We’re an ‘us’, him and me. “But it closes the age gap between us a little,” Ross went on, “and it would make Odgers a little easier to deal with, I think, given you’ve no family to give you away.” It made no sense to Demelza, and she said so. Ross smiled a little, the barest of smiles, not reaching his eyes at all. Not the cheerful smile that she loved so much; he was almost a stranger in his distance from her in this moment, despite how he had just described them as ‘us’, a conjoined entity.

“But of course I’ll do as you say,” she said hastily, in case her confusion might be mistaken for disagreement or disobedience. It did not matter to her whether she wrote her age as seventeen or eighteen or twenty-one. All that mattered was Ross. “Does he write it, or me?” Demelza asked then. She did not feel confident enough in her writing to want to write much where others might see it, but Ross reassured her quickly.

“All you need do is sign your name,” he said. “Ah, here they are. I’ll go and rouse Odgers.”

He strode off towards the church, and Demelza waited for Jud and Prudie to reach her. Jud was huffing and grumbling, as she’d expected, but Prudie occasionally dealt him a blow that silenced him for a few minutes.

“Well, we be here,” Prudie said to Demelza. “Where be the reverend? An’ Mister Ross?”

“Gone an’ run off on ee, ain’t ‘e,” said Jud gloatingly. “What’d I say? No need for marryin’ what’s already on offer.”

Prudie walloped him again. “Bite your tongue,” she snapped. “The maid ain’t goin’ to be hard done by like I was by you, so you just keep quiet, an’ there’s a tot of gin waitin’ at home if you do.” 

“He’s inside,” Demelza said, trying not to scowl. She would not let Jud ruin this for her, not when Ross had said he wanted this, not when he had a ring for her. Not now that they were actually here, at the church, and soon she would be his wife. She turned and began to walk up the pathway to the church door. Reverend Odgers was in the vestibule, and Ross, and if the curate looked at her with poorly disguised disapproval, at least she had the comfort of knowing that he would not voice that disapproval within Ross’s hearing.

“If you are ready, then,” Odgers said, offering no other word of greeting and turning to enter the church without waiting for any response. Ross arched an eyebrow and offered Demelza his arm again. Most brides were taken down the aisle by their father or elder brother, but Demelza had neither here, and Ross had never been one to follow custom for custom’s sake. So he walked his own bride down the aisle, and was thus aware of the minute shaking that she seemed unable to control, if she was even aware of it. Ross kept his eyes forward, on Odgers waiting for them before the altar. It is the right decision, he thought; it is the _only_ decision.

He glanced back just once, when they reached Odgers, to see Jud and Prudie taking a seat in a pew towards the back of the church. Jud looked sullen, and Prudie watchful, but at least they had arrived, and neither had any right to offer an objection to the marriage, so could do no harm now. Demelza’s hand slipped from his arm, and she grasped her bouquet with both hands. The red of her hair and of her dress made her look so pale. So vulnerable, which was not a word he was accustomed to using in relation to Demelza. Her jaw was set, her eyes fixed on Odgers. Her grip on her flowers had turned her knuckles white. He could not believe she harboured any fear of him abandoning her, not now, but she looked as though she was preparing to face an ordeal.

Perhaps she was. Perhaps they both were.

“ _Dearly beloved_ ,” Odgers began, “ _we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this…woman in holy matrimony._ ” Ross noted the pause and disliked the man for it, but it didn’t matter what Odgers thought as long as he performed the ceremony. Demelza shifted a little beside him, and he could hear her exhalation even over the pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears. Everything seemed a little too loud; Odgers’ voice in the church, Jud or Prudie shuffling in the pew behind them, the sound of Demelza’s breathing. Ross kept his eyes fixed on Odgers.

“…and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly,” Odgers droned on, “to satisfy man’s carnal lusts and appetites…”

Well, it did satisfy an appetite, and Ross could only hope it would continue to do so – and no doubt Odgers, and others of his acquaintance, would think that Ross married her for that alone. But there was more to it than that, and Ross knew his reasons, even if they were not reasons that anybody else might understand.

“…secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin…”

Odgers seemed to be speaking much more slowly than normal. Usually he mumbled his way through the common ceremonies of the church, the words so familiar to him that he seemed to skip half of them, but now he seemed intent on pronouncing each word clearly. Perhaps he thought that Ross would change his mind if only given enough time. But Ross had made up his mind within less than a day of first bedding Demelza. He would not turn back now. For better or for worse, he thought wryly. His course was set.

“…therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him speak now,” Odgers said, raising his voice unnecessarily, “or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

Demelza held her breath. Oh God, she thought, what if Father’s been waiting for this? What if he’s in the church now, waiting to drag me back to Illugan to skivvy for them? But nobody spoke. Tom Carne did not appear. He had not been lurking in a dark corner, waiting for the perfect moment to destroy his daughter’s happiness. There was only she and Ross, and Odgers, and Prudie and Jud behind them. Nobody spoke. The silence lengthened, heavy and full of anticipation, but nobody spoke, and at last Odgers cleared his throat and continued.

Demelza heard nothing for a while, the relief she felt too overwhelming. Until now she had not realised how much she had feared and dreaded the arrival of her father to stop the marriage. But now there was nothing to stop it, and if her father came tomorrow, or next week, or in half an hour from now, it would be too late. He would have no right to take her away. He would hold no power over her. The last lingering remains of a dark nightmare were swept away, and she was almost dizzy with the relief of it.

“ _Ross Vennor Poldark_ ,” Odgers intoned. Demelza turned her head, unable to keep herself from looking at Ross now, in this final moment. “ _Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?_ ” Odgers asked. “To live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health and, forsaking all others, keep only unto her for as long as you both shall live?”

Ross turned his head towards her and met her eyes steadily for a long moment. He could hide himself so easily, his thoughts hidden behind a courteous expression, but now she fancied she could see a little of his feelings. Not love, never love, and not a firm resolution either. In this moment she could see an uncertainty that she was not used to seeing in him, and that she wanted to shy away from. But then it was gone. Warmth entered his eyes, and he gave the smallest of nods.

“I will,” he said, facing forwards once more. 

“Demelza Carne,” Odgers said, “will you have this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you obey him and serve him, love, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep only unto him for as long as you both shall live?”

“I will,” said Demelza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) Certain lines of dialogue taken from 1x03.  
> 2) One particular line – ‘I live only for you’ – taken from the novel.  
> 3) The marriage text is from the Book of Common Prayer, as found here: https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/the-form-of-solemnization-of-matrimony.aspx
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading :) I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


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